Silver bar

[joeshmo22]

Hello, this is my first time blogging. I have found a piece that when I try and research it the only place I see similar items is on this site. So anyways the item I found is a little silver bar that reads "1701 kino v then there is a cross then the word Sonora. I'm dieing to hear more about this piece. Please if anyone knows of this bar I would love to be enlightened about it. Thanks.

 

[bluehunter1973]

http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php?topic=100582.0 Your opening up a big can of worms if you show a picture of the bar. Welcome to tnet. Can we have the story of you having the bar and hopefully a picture.

 

[joeshmo22]

Hey thank you so much for your response. Sorry I called it blogging but I am computer illiterate. Anyways thanks for the link. Those bars are just like the one I have. I will have my wife put a picture on tomorrow. So do you know the value of one of these bars?

 

[bluehunter1973]

might want to leave that to someone who knows more about those bars. I guess they used gold in process. Just Pm the guys on the original.

 

[joeshmo22]

ok i finally figured out how to put a picture on. So here she is. Please let me know what you guys think. I would really like to know if this bar is worth anything or not. Hope someone can help me.

 

[motell6]

very interesting, I did see a similar impressions on a clay stamp for sale on the Craigslist list about 3 years ago.What can you tell us how you found this bar,according to some persons there were fakes made to promote book sales years ago.Find any other artifacts with the bar ?

 

[joeshmo22]

Well long story short i found this bar in a man cave basement of a diciest old coin collector. I was working at the time for a company who bought and cleaned out estates. The bar was tucked in the lining of an old steamers trunk. Once i found it i went and showed my boss and he said to just keep it.
We did find numerous other pieces that the owner of the company i worked for sent to auction but nothing like this bar unfortunately. Does anyone have an approximate value on this kind of bar?

 

[gollum]

Hello Joeshmo,

To the naked eye, the bar you have seems to be a reproduction.

I am always quite a bit more skeptical of silver bars than I am of those made of gold. Mainly because silver is not that expensive, so making modern fakes is not cost prohibitive (like faking a cache of gold bars would be).

Most of the fakes I have seen have had the bars cast plainly, then the maker used silver wire to form the letters and symbols. Laid it on the surface of the bar, and melted it to the surface with a torch. If you look closely, this is how your bar appears to have been made. Now, that is still not 100% certain, but the only way to tell for sure is to have a spectrographic analysis done of the bar's content. That could tell you the method of refinement. Once you know that, you can get a better idea of an age range of the bar.

Best of luck - Mike

 

[joeshmo22]

Mike

Thank you very much for your insight. Hopefully someday i can have an expert look at my piece. I will have to look into somewhere i can take it. I will definately let you know once i find out. Thanks again

Joe

 

[chukers]

I read through the link above (extremely interesting) which Gollum talks about similar bars... I think he would know more about your bar than anyone on here... but if you do take it somewhere please let us know... you just don't see that kind of thing any more fake or not!

Chukers

 

[gollum]

Any College with a metallurgical laboratory should be able to look at it for you.

If it were real, I wouldn't want to guess at a value, but as a repro, the silver value would be accurate. Maybe a bit more (as a conversation piece).

Like I said in my PM; from 1711 (the date Kino died) until about 1968, the Mexican Government had no idea where his grave was. Kino was little more than a little known historical figure. Father Charles Polzer SJ resurrected the name of Padre Kino, and publicized his life and works in an effort to get him canonized. So, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Padre Kino's Name became very well known. Since coins are VERY difficult to fake, and usually quite easy to spot, many turned to faking small silver bars. Now, putting Padre Kino's name on a silver bar increased its value by 100x.

Long story short, lots of fakes.

Best- Mike