Wow! Those are ridiculous prices!
That mineralX site is something to go visit now and again, mainly just to get some pix of cool old silver bars, if that’s at all interesting to you. The auctions end Sunday evenings.
I’m completely astounded at some of the prices people have paid for those older obscure bars. And the bids are thick, too, there are/were 40-odd bids for some of them. Eg; multiple participants. Then again, people will pay $25K for 1957 Strat guitar, but that’s quite a different thing than a brand new one for $1200. but the average non-guitar-geek wouldn’t think there’s any diff between a ‘57 Strat and a brand new one.
But the other thing revealed by these obscure mints and the idea that you or I have never heard of them (if you are any sort of metals guy) is that silver has gone through what I can only call bizarre and VERY LONG periods of over and undervalution. And these little mints/refiners go out of business all the time. Or they are just a few dudes working out of their garage. Or both. In exactly what form were the kilotons of silver brought up from the Comstock lode delivered to the US Mint to make coins? There’s definitely a fairly interesting historical wild-west aspect to these tiny mints.