The ¼ ounce silver bar weighs 7.776 grams. Silver bars weighing ¼ ounce are widespread internationally, but rare in Switzerland, as they are based on the imperial unit "ounce". It is not cast, but produced as a silver plate. Usually it is sealed in plastic together with its certificate.
Who produces silver bars
Various smelters produce silver bars, in Switzerland the following LBMA certified refineries are the most important:
Argor-Heraeus (Ticino)
Metalor (Neuchâtel)
Pamp (Ticino)
Valcambi (Ticino)
Silver bars with bank logos are also produced by the refineries mentioned above. Argor-Heraeus produces the bars of the Zürcher Kantonalbank.
How silver bars are produced
Two production processes are common, stamping and casting. In the first step, silver is refined to the desired fineness in both processes. Then the ingot is produced.
For the casting process, the exact amount of silver granulate required is melted and then cooled in a mould. Whether the silver is poured from a crucible into a mould in a heated state or the mould itself is heated with the granulate is irrelevant. The resulting surface texture on the ingot is typical of this process.
In the stamping process, an ingot or strand is first formed into a long silver strip, which is already close to the dimensions of the future ingot in terms of both width and thickness. Then correspondingly heavy silver plates are punched out of this silver strip, which are subsequently embossed with the product and manufacturer logos.
Today, the stamping process is usually used for bars of 100 g and smaller, while the casting process is used for larger bars.
The fineness of silver ingots
The fineness of 999 is the predominant grade for silver bars in Switzerland. However, the higher fineness of 999.9 is also common.
999.0 is the lowest fineness, which just meets the Good Delivery Standard defined by the LBMA (London Bullion Market Association).
What are the security features?
Silver bars are traded with a certificate from the manufacturer. When buying precious metals, the customer should make sure that the certificates are still available.
The price of silver bars
The price of silver is determined by the stock exchange and consequently also the price of silver bars. The spread, i.e. the difference between the purchase and the buying price, always depends on the production costs and their relative value to the silver bar. So the bigger the bar, the smaller the share of production costs in the price.
The importance of LBMA certification for silver bars
The London Bullion Market Association, or LBMA for short, sets the standards internationally for the production of silver bars. Due to its influence, its standards are also adopted in the legal texts of the various countries. The LBMA is not only concerned with the production itself, but also with sustainability, traceability and the conflict-free origin of the silver.
Silver and VAT
Silver is legally considered a raw material and is therefore subject to VAT like all other products. Read our article Taxes on Silver. Investors who want to buy silver without paying VAT can do so by having the silver delivered directly to a duty-free warehouse. You therefore have to use the specialised services of a storage company, but you save the VAT.
