Vienna Philharmonic silver coin

The wonderful @raybrockman is very good about alerting the community of SilverGoldStackers to deals in precious metals. He recently told us about a deal to get some 1 ounce silver coins at a flat $15 apiece, which was $6 cheaper than the cheapest Internet price he could find for the same coins. I'm not sure if anyone else jumped on the chance, but I certainly did! I asked for three of them, but I am almost wishing now that I'd gotten a couple more.

When the Austrian Mint began producing bullion for collectors of precious metals, they decided to honor the rich musical heritage of their region. The bullion features an image on both side that is a tribute to the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. It has been offered in gold in since 1989, followed by silver in 2008, and platinum in 2016.

The reverse shows four violins, a cello, a Vienna horn (which is a more sophisticated variant of the French Horn for use in orchestral arrangements), a bassoon, and a harp.

The obverse (front) of the piece features the magnificent pipe organ located in the Vienna Musikverein's Golden Hall with "REPUBLIK ÖSTERREICH" ("Republic of Austria") written above. Beneath is "ONE OUNCE FINE SILVER" in German, along with the date of minting and a nominal face-value of 1½ Euros.

Occasionally, white blotches called "milk spots" can appear on silver coins and bullion. Experts suspect that they are due to the processing of the metal during manufacture, but no one is entirely certain. Awhile back, I read (somewhere, but I forget where I read it) that these Vienna Philharmonic coins seem more susceptible to the "milk spots" than many other silver rounds, although any silver can develop them, sometimes long after manufacture. Milk spots do not affect the precious metal value of the pieces, they only make them slightly less-attractive from viewpoint of collectors. But, I am happy to note that these — at least for now! — are free of any milk spots. For a very interesting and informative article about this phenomenon, see the following link:

https://coinweek.com/education/coin-grading/ngc/coin-analyst-collectors-crying-milk-spotted-american-silver-eagles/

Although the primary focus of my silver collection has been feminine imagery, I have always dearly loved music and have a decent collection of genres ranging from Classical to Jazz, Blues, House, Rock, Reggae, Folk, and many others. So, these rounds definitely follow my lifelong love of music.

Besides these lovely, shiny coins, there was also a little surprise in the package as well — a silver skull...! At first, the modest @raybrockman said nothing about it, but with a little arm-twisting to get the history of the skull, he admitted that he had poured it, himself! It is a fabulous little piece and very nicely done! The reverse is stamped "21 G" but it weighed a generous 21.38 grams on my scale. I am thrilled to have it, especially since it was poured by a fellow member of the #silvergoldstackers community here on the blockchain! Thank you, Ray!

Now I am fortunate to have two lovely pieces of hand-poured silver, both designed and executed by other members of the #silvergoldstackers community! The first was the Silver Saver Bar designed and poured by @silversaver888 which I was lucky to win back in 2018 during one of the Monster Raffles. And now this awesome little skull came to me, too! Both can be seen in the photo, above.