Sunshine Mining

Sunshine Mining was a major player in the United States Silver Bullion Market throughout the 1950's, 60's, 70's & 80's.
Not only was it one of the biggest producers of newly mined Silver for the Bullion Market, it was also the official supplier of Silver Bullion to the U.S. Government for their "Strategic Defense Silver Stockpile".
Around 1993 Sunshine Mining ceased to exist as a Mining & Minting entity and after a few years emerged again as "Sunshine Minting", still using a virtually identical logo & design for their Silver Bullion Rounds & Bars. The only real difference was the substitution of "Minting" as opposed to "Mining" on their designs.
Sunshine Minting is now the official sole supplier of "Blanks" for the United States Mints; American Silver Eagle Dollar program.
Although very little had changed in the way of design or appearance of Sunshine Silver's products for many years, the recent upsurge in "Bullion Stacking" & the desire of these Stackers to have Serialized or Certified Bullion products has led (the now named) Sunshine Minting to develop an innovative new "security system" they say is "encoded" onto their new release Silver Bullion Rounds & Bars which can be decoded with a smartphone application.
Similarly to serial numbers on bullion, the idea behind this innovation is to provide:
a) A way of identifying & thus recovering Bullion in case of theft.
b) Lessens the chances of counterfeiting of their bullion products.
and lastly
c) Brings Sunshine Minting up closer to being in the same league as Englehard, PAMP and other "High Premium" Bullion Producers by providing this "peace of mind".
After talking to many Silver Bullion Buyers & Dealers, the consensus I've ascertained is that they'd gladly pay a slightly bigger premium for the advanced security features.
That being said, when you actually see & hold one of the Vintage Sunshine Mining Rounds like the one pictured, it's outstanding mirror finish field & "Proof-Like" appearance, coupled with their rarity makes at least this Silver Stacker prefer these older, rarer, vintage rounds to anything new on the market.
I'll let you be the judge.