Shire Silver Solutions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Ryan Marvin
shiresilver@gmail.com
Ron Helwig
ron@ronhelwig.com
Shire Silver Announces Initial Bullion Design
Manchester, NH, March 10, 2008 - The Shire Silver team is proud to announce the final design for the first run of a locally produced, open source precious metal exchange bullion.
Purpose
The purpose of the Shire Silver project is to produce a metal bullion that is easy for anyone to produce, easy to exchange, easily recognizable, and easily distinguishable from any government-issued currency or bullion.
Denomination
The project will use two base units in parallel: the fractional troy ounce and the decimal gram. Initially, 1 ounce and 10 gram pieces will be produced. These will be followed with 1/2 oz, 1/4 oz, 20 gram, and 50 gram.
When demand rises, 1/8 oz, 5 oz, 5 gram, and 100 gram units may be produced. If and when there is demand for units outside that range, a copper or gold base (other precious) metals will be used, with appropriate changes to the design of the specimen.
Shape
The shape of the bullion will be a rounded square for those denominated in metric weight, and a rounded rectangle for those in troy weight. This both helps distinguish troy from metric specie and makes them even more easily distinguishable from any government-issued currency.
Complexity of Design
All text and graphics are rendered so that they can be struck with a two-level die (foreground and background only) as opposed to multi-level or sculpted dies. This provides for less expensive die manufacture and a more uniform detail quality when produced with home-based or hobbyist equipment.
Text
The text on the obverse will consist of the name "Shire Silver", descriptors of the weight and metal content, the website address, and the motto "Defending Traditional Value."
Symbols
The textual symbol to be used for Shire Silver will be the section symbol (Unicode U+00A7) intersected by two horizontal strokes. The section symbol, in addition to being a doubling of the letter "S", is associated in the western world with justice and wealth. The horizontal strokes have been used in symbols in the bullion trade for centuries as a symbol of stability and fairness.
The main graphic image consists of 12 spitzer bullets fanned out into the shape of a flower. It symbolizes the inseverable relationship between peace and a willingness to defend one's self from all aggression, regardless of the direction from which it originates. Adequate space is provided to the upper right of this image for applying a mint mark when appropriate.
Reverse
No imagery was chosen for the reverse. It was decided to use this space to emphasize that the intrinsic value of the piece derives not from the people who minted it or from the words or images on it, but rather from the metal from which it is composed. As such, the reverse depicts the chemical properties of silver as depicted on the periodic table.
Contributors to Final Design
IA, RH, RJ, KM, RM, BW.
ABOUT SHIRE SILVER
Shire Silver is a volunteer project working to produce an inflation-proof metal bullion for voluntary exchange that is easy for anyone to produce, easy to exchange, easily recognizable, and easily distinguishable from any government-issued currency or bullion. More information is available at www.shiresilver.com
-END-

__________________________