Prospector????

Afternoon everyone….

I hope everyone had a great weekend. The weather here in the northeast was fantastic. Mid 80’s and sunny. That’s my perfect weather, as long as the humidity is low. Which it actually was.

Onto the silver…

This piece was a gift at the silvergoldstacker meet up two years ago I believe from my California buddy @brianrrr. He’s a really great guy and is lots of fun to hang with, and if you didn’t know already he is also a gold prospector.

This is a fitting piece from the prospector himself. It’s a two ounce Hayleybug Mint female prospector round.

They do some great work if you’d like to check them out. Hayleybugmint.com.

Here is their bio from their website….

Jay Schwab
Owner of Hayleybug Mint LLC

Jay’s introduction into the hobby came in early 2019 after stumbling across some collector and sales groups on Facebook. His collection started as many do with a random assortment of vintage art bars, generic rounds, and modern collectibles. It wasn’t until Jay noticed a larger premium on hand poured bars that he became curious about melting silver. Having been in the trades for 20 years prior as a heavy equipment mechanic and having a formal education in metallurgy and metalworks it seemed logical that he try his hand at pouring. After melting just one Canadian Maple coin his Daughter Hayley, then only 10 years old stuck her head out into the garage in curiosity. She too was fascinated with the art of hand poured silver as her dad donned her with safety gear. She then melted and poured our second piece ever and so their journey began.

Starting with graphite molds and some letter stamps Jay and Hayley made their first bars. Selling them on a Facebook sales group and being encouraged by the community Hayleybug Art Pours was born! They went under this name for nearly the next 2 years as they continued to learn and improve their skills in hand pours. Moving through graphite molds, to petro bond sand casting, and then finding their rhythm with delft clay. Casting a wide variety of pop culture items and statues combined with pouring them live on Facebook and Instagram their popularity grew. Jay’s drive to continually improve and grow in the hobby combined with his engineering training and access to design programs led him to build and design a 100 ton and eventually a 200 ton tabletop press that was more cost effective for a hobbyist. Then it was just a matter of creating custom tooling and they began minting their own 1 ounce 39mm silver rounds. This inevitably led to a spike in sales and popularity and it was time for a name upgrade.

Hayleybug Mint LLC was formed in early 2021 and by the end of that year Jay had moved on from his job in the trades and was investing his full focus into the brand. With collaborations, tooling upgrades, and an increased presence on social media Hayleybug Mint is becoming more known and their products are showing up in more collections and stacks. Hayley is still active in production while she balances this with her school and social life and just recently in 2023 after graduating high school Jay’s son Jaycob joined the family business full time to learn the craft and help out.

While Hayleybug Mint has grown over the years it is their dedication to simply “making cool stuff for cool people” as they say, that keeps them grounded. The future holds many new products from this family business out of the Midwest and collectors and dealers seem eager to snatch up every new release. But their message remains the same, “Be kind to one another and remember Peace, Love, and Hayleybug.”

Now for the round….

The scratches are not on the round just the air-tite. I didn’t have a new one that size to change it.