Face Value?

The face value on the Silver Eagle(just like the gold and platinum Eagles) serves to monetize it which officially makes it a coin with the full financial backing of the US Government. That is typical for any government producing bullion- Canadian Maple Leafs, British Britannias, Austrian Philharmonics, Australian Kookaburras/Roos, etc. Without it being monetized, it is just another hunk of silver like so many privately minted bullion rounds you can find on ebay.

The Franklin Mint has no association with the US Mint. They produce many medals, bullion products, and other things like that but they also sell overpriced and overmarketed US coins. The person who buys Franklin Mint stuff almost always loses money unless they happened to get silver when the value was really low. Even then, they still would have made more money with other silver investments.

The face value of modern "bullion coins" is usually far below the actual bullion value because governments don't want to be forced into having to "buy back" large amounts of bullion coin at an inflated price if the bullion price falls. This is something some governments have learned about the hard way.

Silver is currently at $16.45/ounce. If the government put on the coin a "realistic" face value of, say, $15 or even $10, the minute the price of silver fell below that face value again, people would flood the banks with the things, and the banks would send them back to the government. The government would then have to either act as a silver speculator, holding the coins in the hope that the price goes back up again, or melting them down and re-issuing the silver as new coins with a lower face value, taking the loss.

With an extremely low face value, the government avoids this potential problem. If the price of silver were to ever fall below $1/ounce, I think the government would have a lot more to worry about than a few silver speculators cashing in their coins.

The value of silver right now is the exception,
not the rule. Through much of the life of the
ASE dollars, silver has hovered from 4 to 7 bux.

IMO?
Yes.
It was 18 bux when I bought my first Oz in 1981.
It was near 50 bux shortly thereafter.
It goes up, it goes down.
The trick is buying low and selling high, assuming
that is what you are worried about. Being a coin
collector though, I don't care. I buy what I need,
when I need it. It would be nice if the price was
way down when I needed silver coins, but it doesn't
work that way.

Riddle me this:
When do you see commercials on TV touting the investment
qualities of Gold/Silver? (Mostly gold)

You don't see commercials trying to sell you gold until
the price is UP! When the price is down, you don't see
Gordon Liddy shouting "GOLD!" on TV.

When you see commercials wanting to sell precious metals,
that is the time NOT to buy.

You know they are making good money when they
can afford the retired Mint Director to shill
for their commercials! I'm sure ol' Gordon
doesn't come cheap either!

In various localities, there is no sales tax on the sale of legal
tender coins, or there is a lower rate of sales tax for legal tender
coins than for bullion.

There are also cases where importing & exporting is less restricted
for legal tender coins, versus bullion.

Legal tender 'bullion' coins can be deposited into a 'Gold I.R.A.' account.