Bad money driven out by...

Poor inventory control, says Mulligan Mint president Rob Gray. He doesn't know where all the silver went, but his heart is pure...unalloyed;

Some of the mint’s coins are used by Native American tribes or associations that want commemorative coins. It has also sold coins for what are called “community currencies”—an alternative money system adopted by small groups of people.

“We were a business that set out to do something important for the world and that was to create a complementary currency system for communities that are overlooked by mainstream banking and finance,” Mr. Gray said.

Mulligan Mint’s customers, for example, have included those who take the view thatTexas is its own nation, having never properly turned over its land rights. The group’s coins, which depict the Alamo, were once advertised on Mulligan Mint’s website as “not regulated or manipulated by the U.S. government and retains its true value permanently.”

But now it's a question for the bankruptcy court;

Mulligan Mint’s bankruptcy stops Republic Metals, which has sued the mint, from taking any more of the plant’s property. The county’s sheriff already took $200,000 worth of silver and gold amid the dispute, which Mulligan Mint wants back.

“What began as a business dispute and an unpaid debt…now escalated due to the seizures [of the company’s] property into a life and death struggle for what is otherwise a sound and potentially highly profitable business,” Mulligan Mint’s attorneys wrote in papers filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas.

A lawyer for Republic Metals declined to comment about Mulligan Mint’s bankruptcy.

No word yet on rumors the mint will relocate to Gresham, Oregon.