Bringing Silver Value Back on Track
Silver is a precious metal with a wide array of uses. Silver value has been an acknowledged standard since ancient times when it was the major currency of trade. Although silver value has diminished over the recent times, it still plays a major role in the international market today.
The first known source of silver is believed to be the mines around Anatolia, now known as Turkey, in 4000 BC. This supplied the flourishing cultures around Greece, Crete, and the Near East. Around 2500 BC the Chaldeyans developed a process called “cupellation” to extract silver from silver-lead ores. During the rise and fall of civilizations around Europe and Asia Minor, silver value remains high, with major silver sources moving from Laurium (near Athens, and produced the largest amount of silver during this era), Asia Minor, Sardinia, Asia, Spain, Germany, and Austria-Hungary.
Silver trading in the Americas started in the 1500’s when Europeans exchanged personal items including silver for fur pelts with the Native American tribes. During these times, the natives live off the land and have no knowledge about silver value. However, they liked the shape and designs of the silver jewelries, brooches, and pins that they prefer them for trade. Eventually it became the medium for the fur trade.
The development of amalgamation using mercury to extract silver from alloys increased silver production. The first silver mines in the New World were believed to be in Bolivia and Mexico in the 1500’s. This brought into existence the international silver standard. Silver exploitation started in Peru a centrury later.
By the middle of the 1800’s the beaver population had dwindled because of the high demand for fur, causing t...
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...hlorine. This is why billions of dollars are spent on silver for water purification systems.
These are just a fraction of the uses of Silver in different industries. The tensile strength, conductivity, catalytic activity, and corrosion free properties of silver make versatile and its applicability is endless. The increasing demand for silver will eventually deplete the silver reserves and will, in turn increase silver value.
Although currently low, many have predicted a rise of silver value in the not-so-distant future because of its increasing demands in a multitude of industries. Many people in trade are expecting a “silver bubble” or a price explosion that would skyrocket the silver value and eventually create another economic panic. Like gold, silver may come in paper silver of different forms such as silver certificates, pool accounts, and leverage accounts.
On a stop in Colorado during a business trip to California in 1883, Coin became fascinated with silver and took up a pick to try his hand at mining. Calling his mine “Silver Bell,” Harvey’s mine was the second largest producer in the area; however, due to the increase in transportation costs, increasing labor unrest, and the plummeting market value of silver, Harvey abandoned his mine. From Coin’s mining days, he formed an interest in silver as opposed to gold as the U.S. monetary system standard. In 1891, he became the chairman of the Trans-Mississippi Congress, whose interest was in promoting legislation that would benefit the states west of the Mississippi.
The global flow of silver effected the mid-sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century economically because silver made the world go round, socially because everyone was dependent on some sort of trade, and politically because silver was a high priority to important world powers. In this document based assignment, it would have been convenient to have a document about the opinion of either a Potosi Indian or a peasant from the commercial city of Hangzhou because both points of view would give further insight into the negative side of this time periods lust for silver, and how the insanity ruined lives.
In Salinas Valley around the 1850s, gold was found by a man named James W. Marshall in California. The first people to hear and be familiar with the “Gold Rush” were the people in Oregon, Hawaii, and Latin America who started to flock to the state. Everyone told and the word spread which led around 300,000 people to California from the US. At first, gold was found on the ground and was to be picked up. Later on, gold was discovered from streams and riverbeds.
Before the Modern Era, international communication was not prevalent. Many factions were present between distant regions in the world, and regional trade flourished between lands that were close in proximity. Lands in the Americas or South America did not experience a strong connection to lands further east due to these gaps in communication. However, due to the emergence of silver, regional economies all combined to form one global economy. In this global economy, different, distant regions interacted through a common trade. Silver production, common from the 1500s to 1750, helped global interactions flourish. Different regions, specifically China and the Philippines, Spain and its colonies, and England collectively experienced shifts in their societies and economies through a combined need to interpose themselves in this global flow of silver, that was then expanded upon through different methods of gaining silver.
The creation of societies in the West resulted in the blossoming of three new industries: mining, ranching, and farming. Mining began at large with the discovery of gold in California in 1849 and continued with other discoveries and “rushes” later on; these rus...
The fortune of silver and gold discovered in Colorado’s mountains were locked inside complex ores consisting of granite, quartz and other metals that rendered them useless, unless they could be separated (Egan. NPS). Miners originally imported stamp mills and Spanish arrastras to extract the gold and silver but both these methods were inefficient and lost upwards of 70 percent of the sought after mineral (NPS). In 1867, chemistry professor Nathanial P. Hill discovered an efficient method called the Swansea process to separate the precious metals and opened the Boston Colorado Smelter in Blackhawk (NPS).
The term “zinc” was not in use until the 16th century, at the earliest. The ancient Greeks called it “pseudargyras,” meaning “false silver,” and made very little use of it (Mathewson 1). The unassuming bluish-gray mineral was given a warmer welcome by the Romans, who were already using it to make brass by “about the time of Augustus, 20BC to 14AD”; the Romans used, not purified zinc, but the mineral calamine (“zincky wall accretions” from caves) and fused them in a crucible with bits of copper to make their brass (Mathewson 1). Around the world, zinc was being exploited by the Chinese civilization as well, although documentation of Asian use of zinc does not come until the 7th century of AD, from Kazwiui, the “Pliny of the Orient.” Kazwiui, “who died in 630AD, stated that the Chinese knew how to render the metal malleable and used it to make small coins and mirrors” (Mathewson 2). The discovery and use of zinc, then, was widespread in ancient times and through the Middle Ages. However, it seems that it had not yet been used for anything much more practical than a mirror, a fact that would very quickly change in the 18th and 19th centuries as higher-grade zinc became available and new applications presented themselves.
Gold is one of the most valuable materials all around the world. This jewel has its own glittering appearance and shiny color which induce people to desire to possess it. That’s probably why Europeans in the middle age have explored new continents and invaded other civilizations to find this glittering material. Americans also had given much endeavor to mine that valuable jewel in the time of gold rush. Investigating these events, gold has immensely affected the world history; the Age of Exploration, invasions of Spaniards, and the development of California.
Yushao Wu, Junwu Dang, Fang Liu, Tong Au, & Lili Wang. (2014). China Report of the Development on Silver Industry. Beijing: Social Science Academic
Around the beginning of the sixteenth centruy, many countires had started to explore farther away and finding new territories. New products like sugar and taobacco began to emerge around the world in many places. Many countries in Europe were gaining power due to the control of colonies in the Americas. Asian countries did not explore as much, but still managed to remain large and powerful for a while. The global flow of silver had economic effects on inflating prices of goods and stimulating econimic policy of mercantilism, and social effects on negative effects on the lower class around the world during the mid-sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century.
-Discuss the silver vs. gold argument, listing at least one argument for silver and one argument for gold.
Silver is one of the most valuable precious metals due to its tangible and secure nature. One of the factors why you should purchase silver bullion over others is that the coins are small making them easy to store. In addition, they are cost-effective when considering adding them to investment portfolios. The silver bullion consists of seven types:
Colorado also has a rich mining history which began in about 1859 with the discovery of gold and development of new reserves, Colorado’s present day industry is a modern, innovative, safe and environmentally responsible citizen that extracts a wide variety of minerals such as; gold, Marble, and gypsum from the earth, valued at more than $2 billion each year. (Colorado Mining Association, 2007)
Gold, nothing can compare to this precious metal. A symbol of wealth and prosperity, it has been a value for explorers and adventurers and a lure for conquerors. Today it is vital to commerce and finance; popular in ornamentation, and increasing importance in technology.
Around 1848 gold was discovered in the American River, which ran right through California. By 1849 tens of thousands of people from around the world mad...