GameOverDude

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the continued support.
I am trying to work through all the messages and waiting list enquiries as best as I can.
That has not been helped by a pretty nasty accident I had today, who knew dislocating ones knee would be so bloody awful.
It popped back in on its own after a few minutes, but not very pleasant at all.
I'm all good, just sore, stiff and pretty slow to move around so my original plan was to get the first batch posted to people tomorrow, that is now going to have to wait until Monday next week, thank you all for your patience and support!
Will be replying to messages/enquiries more tomorrow, for now it's drugs and a sofa for me!

Hello everyone. @ChrisSIlver and I are very happy to announce the official release of the 2021 1 oz Silver Forum Bars!
We would also like to thank everybody for their patience in the build up to this release - it has been a busy year to date and it is no easy task to bring a project like this together. 
There is a lot of information to disseminate so please bear with us, some of this might be relevant to different people. I have broken this post up into different sections for ease of reading. 
If you have any questions please feel free to ask here on this thread or via PM. 
First, here are some glamour shots of the 2021 1 oz forum bars!



Changes for 2021 
2021 does not see any design changes for the 1 oz Silver Forum Bars other than the year date stamp.
2021 does, however, see the first increase in mintage for the 1 oz bars (more information on this later in this post).
We think these are by far and away the best iterations of the 1 oz forum bars to date and I am very honoured and privileged to continue to work with @ChrisSilver, The Silver Forum and ALL OF YOU WONDERFUL MEMBERS out there!
There are a lot of different aspects to tell you about so I have split this post up into various sections, hopefully this will cover most of your questions but if there is something I have not covered then please feel free to get in touch or comment on this thread. 
What are The Silver Forum Bars all about?
The Silver Forum hand poured products (in all their sizes) have been created as a way to draw the silver forum community together but also as a fundraising and brand awareness raising exercise. Some of the proceeds from the sales goes directly to the forum and helps greatly with running costs and keeping the forum the way we have become accustomed to. Silver Premium, Gold Premium and Platinum Premium and now platinum plus memberships go a long way to helping the running of the forum and to help keep the membership prices as low as practical, The Silver Forum Bars we make help a lot too. 
In addition you are supporting the Backyard Bullion brand and poured silver from us. This is our 5th year producing hand poured silver for the silver forum and 6th Year pouring silver - it is because of the support we get from members on and off the silver forum that keeps us doing what we do and striving to do better every year. 
These bars are all hand poured, stamped and finished by myself meaning each and every bar is unique in some way. The weights will vary bar to bar (although none less than 1 ozt) and the cooling patterns of the silver will also be unique and different for each one. 
The allure of hand poured silver is growing stronger year by year and these bars are a brilliant way to start collecting hand poured silver and at the same time supporting The Silver Forum and the Backyard Bullion brand too. 
These bars are ready to be shipped immediately.
In previous years we have done a pre-release reservation period - we have moved away from this model of business and now any releases we make are only announced when they are finished. 
The bars are all finished and can be dispatched as early as the end of this week.
Hallmarking
As with all of my Hand Poured Silver products these bars have been Assay Tested and Hallmarked by the Edinburgh Assay Office. 
Hallmarking is a very good addition to any poured silver. It is your guarantee that these bars are indeed 999 fine silver and made by me in 2021.
Mintage
The mintage for 2021 will be: 250 bars
Previous years we had mintages of 200 (2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020). 
This is the first mintage increase for this product line and reflects the growing popularity of these bars and the expanding silver forum membership. 
As with previous years members with bars from a preceding year have first right of refusal at the same serial number in the current year. This often leads minimal bars available for new members. 
This year, there will be at least 50 new bars available for new members to have a chance to get a bar. 
Serial Number reservations & previous bar ownership
Questions regarding serial numbers and securing a bar are the most commonly asked questions I get. 
The rule of thumb has been and always will be if you own the previous years serial number you have first right of refusal for taking up the bar in 2021. 
For new members or people without a 2020 bar this might seem like you have no chance of getting one - there will always be people who do not/cannot take up their 2020 bars and as such there is always a batch of bars available for new members.
In addition we have increased the mintage, so there will certainly be bars to go around for new members. 
Deadlines to secure bars
To claim your existing serial number and bar (if you own a 2020 bar) please contact me and confirm (and pay) before the end of May. After this date we will not be able to guarantee your purchase and will offer these serial numbers out to members on the waiting list. 
Waiting list for new members/owners
If you would like to purchase a bar past experience has showed me that there will be a lot of demand. As such, we will be operating a waiting list which will ultimately end up in a random lottery to see if members will be allocated a bar. It is the fairest way to do this. 
We will be restricting this waiting list to 1 bar per member to ensure as many different people get access to a bar as possible. 
To be placed on the waiting list, please comment on this thread and we will make sure you are added. 
We will not be contacting people on the waiting list until the first week of June to collect payment and distribute bars. 
Pricing and shipping details
Prices are as follows for the different Silver Forum membership levels
Standard or Non member price - £40 per bar
Silver member price - £39 per bar
Gold member price - £38 per bar
Platinum member price - £37 per bar
Platinum plus member price - £36 per bar
UK Postage & Packaging: +£3 via Royal Mail Signed for delivery or £7 Special Delivery
International postage: +£10 tracked and insured, +£5 untracked and limited insurance
A few notes on pricing
These bars are not cheap bullion. They are not advertised or sold as investment products but as unique collectable items.
Some of the proceeds from the sales of these bars goes directly to The Silver Forum. 
Every bar is UNIQUE. These bars are hand poured, hand stamped and polished by me. They take a lot of time and energy and equipment to create. These are premium hand poured silver products, not cheap bullion. They are a way to support the Backyard Bullion business, my brand and most importantly, The Silver Forum. As I said earlier, proceeds from the sale of these bars go towards the upkeep and running costs of this forum. This helps keep membership prices as low as possible for premium and gold premium members and ensures that standard members can still use this forum for free. 
The price also incorporates the Hallmarking costs, this includes postage of these bars to and from Edinburgh and the application of the hallmark.
Forum membership and pricing 
As you can see there are some very good savings to be had for upgrading your membership - so take a look at all of the benefits that are available for Premium Members today!
 
 
A few notes on pricing
These bars are not cheap bullion. They are not sold as investment products but as collectables.
These bars are hand poured, hand stamped and polished by me. They take a lot of time and energy and equipment to create. These are premium hand poured silver products, not cheap bullion. They are a way to support the Backyard Bullion business, my brand and most importantly, The Silver Forum. As I said earlier, proceeds from the sale of these bars go towards the upkeep and running costs of this forum. This helps keep membership prices as low as possible for premium and gold premium members and ensures that standard members can still use this forum for free. 
Standard members - The difference in price is as a way for you to support the forum in a one off style payment rather than signing up for membership. But also please feel free to upgrade your membership to take advantage of the discounts available. 
The price also incorporates the Hallmarking costs, this includes postage of these bars to and from Edinburgh and the application of the hallmark.
Payment Information
We can accept payment via PayPal, Banks Transfer or Credit/Debit card (Phone call will be required to complete the transaction)
If you would like to order a bar please PM or reply to this thread and we can link up with payment information. 

Just to let you know, to try to resolve the issues that are causing problems in the mentioned topic below, that sometime this week we are planning to put the forum into offline mode to overhaul everything and hopefully fix it.
So the forum will be down for an extended period sometime this week, which may be a few days. (This is to avoid data being lost in the transfer)
We apologise in advance for this downtime and hope that we are able to permanently resolve the issues on the server this week.
EDIT: Work may begin from tonight. We apologise in advance for the downtime but this is needed to try to rectify the issues causing this. Hopefully it will be fixed within 2-3 days Max. (The forum is quite large so moving all of the files over will take some time)

Have finished the testing on a test site. The modifications to the Prize Draw application seem to be working. Will need to wait for the developer to submit their application and then we should be able to upgrade it from the forum's admin side. I am hoping that this will be sometime this week and that it will fix the Prize Draw application, but we won't know until we have tried it on TSF. Therefore please ignore any automatic announcements by the system, until I gave confirmed in this topic that the issue has been resolved.

I also want to reassure members that if it goes beyond the end of the month to fix it, that we will not loose out on the April 2021 Premium Member Prize Draw, and there will be a draw for this month even if we have to hold it on a subsequent date.  

Once again, apologies for this application being down. And I will post here when I have further updates.