Silver prices are calculated by weight. This price is in dollars per ounce of silver. There are several methods of weighing in the precious metals and gemstone markets. The most commonly used internationally is the troy system (TROY), a troy system (TROY) ounce is equal to about 31.10 grams; and a regular ounce is about 28.35 grams.
Silver has been used as a currency and store of value for over 4,000 years. In 1816, the United Kingdom implemented the “Gold Standard Act”, which determined that the British pound banknotes were only pegged to gold, and the United Kingdom became the first country in the world to abolish the status of silver currency at the national level. In the second half of the 19th century, Western countries began to follow the British implementation of the gold standard in terms of currency. At the beginning of the 20th century, only China was the only major country in the world with a complete “silver standard”. In 1935, the national government implemented the “fiat currency reform” and completely abandoned the use of silver dollars as currency, which meant that the last important country in the world gave up the silver capital, and the price of silver subsequently fell to the lowest level in history, and its commodity attributes exceeded financial attributes.
On August 15, 1971, U.S. President Nixon announced the decoupling of the U.S. dollar from gold, the Bretton Woods system collapsed, and the U.S. government began to deregulate gold and silver prices. The price of silver can freely fluctuate with market demand, and the intrinsic value of silver coins exceeds the face value.
The historical value of silver has experienced four main historical periods: the ancient high price period, the modern turbulent period, the modern speculation period and the contemporary steady growth period.
ancient high price period
Natural silver is mostly alloyed with gold, tribute, antimony, copper or platinum, and natural gold is almost always alloyed with a small amount of silver. The known amber gold in ancient my country, called ELECTRUM in English, is a natural gold and silver alloy, containing about 20% silver. Initially, silver was more valuable than gold due to the small amount of silver that people obtained. In the Egyptian dynastic code of approximately 1780-1580 BC, silver was valued twice as much as gold. In the Critique of Political Economy, Marx said: “…while the mining of silver presupposes mine labor and generally a relatively high degree of technological development. Therefore, although silver is not so absolutely scarce, its initial value is relatively more than the value of gold.”
Silver has three attributes: currency attribute, investment attribute and commodity attribute, which also determines that the driving factors of silver price will be complex and diverse. In addition to the two major factors of supply and demand, silver prices are also affected by four major driving factors: geopolitics, economics, finance and physical silver supply.