New Silver Pickup: Grim Reaper High Relief (Monarch Metals) & US Assay Office Coin

In the spirit of the Fall, with Halloween now closing in, I found these Grim Reaper coins very appealing. My brother passed away less than a year ago as well, so I have an intriguing relationship with death. Recently I've been carrying around a copper coin that reads "Memento Mori", a reminder of death. I am not fond of death in any way, but it is part of life, and it's good to be reminded that our time on earth is finite. Make the most of your day, that's the inspiration I get from these reminders. Moving on,

These are Monarch Metals' limited release (10,000 were made) High Relief Grim Reaper 1 ounce rounds:

You can also see on the front that it reads "MMXVII", which is the Roman numeral for 2017.

Reverse side:

A closer view:

I love the "Horror" themed-font they used, and the Grim Reaper walking in the background on the reverse side. Quite a unique design.

I bought these through APMEX, but here is a link to another site "Buy Gold and Silver Coins". Has anyone ever heard of this site, or know if they are reliable? Would love to hear from you if so. Back to the score...

I hope you enjoyed seeing these! I also like historical pieces (you may have seen my last post about the 10 cent bill I have from 1863, if not you might want to check it out!). For that reason, I found this piece from the U.S. Assay Office to be intriguing as well, and I paid that little bit of extra premium for this great find:

For those of you who don't know, the US stopped holding silver reserves in 2006. This piece was originally held at the San Francisco US Assay Office (it even says "Formerly Stored at San Francisco US Assay Office" on the piece). It reads "Minted from US Strategic Stockpile". Unfortunately, the US seems more keen on exporting gold and doesn't even hold any silver any more, meanwhile Russia, China, India and others have been hoarding tens of thousands of tons of this stuff.... dollar hegemony will not last. Back to the silver of this discussion though...

This US Assay Office piece also reads "Silver Trade Unit" on the reverse:

I bought a few other pieces but these were the ones I chose to feature due to my personal fondness for them.

I have another order coming in later this week that I'm particularly excited about - a lot of variety and some really cool pieces (both gold and silver). I'll be sharing these, probably next weekend :) I hope you enjoyed another #steemsilvergold post. Keep stacking all my steemit friends out there.

As always, comments, questions, upvotes and resteems are always appreciated and welcomed. Thanks again!

-Your friend and fan, FamCore