Silver Prices

The extraordinarily bullish fundamentals of the Silver Market suggest, at current prices, that investing in silver could offer investors one of the single best long-term investments today. It is no secret that both gold and silver are recognized as a store of value. What is not so well known is that while gold has demonstrated a solid trend of price appreciation since 2001, more than quintupling in price, the price of silver has recently outperformed that of gold.

In fact, between January 4, 2010 and June 30, 2011, the price of gold increased approximately 34%, while the price of silver increased more than 100%. In addition, there is a compelling argument for silver investing because the economic and monetary fundamentals in place today are even more bullish than the conditions of the 1970s when the silver price exceeded $50 per ounce. Yet today's market prices, at well below the $50 level, are a mere fraction of levels projected by silver industry experts for the future.

Worldwide market demand for silver is growing, while supplies of silver are quickly disappearing. New high-tech uses for silver will further strain already-tight supplies in the future. World demand for silver now exceeds annual production and has every year since 1990, depleting above-ground stockpiles of silver. The U.S. government, once the largest stockpile of silver on the planet, dumped billions and billions of ounces of silver onto the world market over the years, resulting in depressed silver prices. Today, that government silver hoard is gone, and now the U.S. government is a buyer of silver at prevailing world silver prices.

For these reasons and many more, the silver market certainly appears to represent an outstanding investing opportunity.

Silver Fun Facts

1. Silver kills bacteria by chemically affecting the cell membranes, breaking them down. Bacteria do not develop resistance to Silver, as they do to so many antibiotics.
2. Today, Peru and Mexico are the largest producers of silver.
3. When silver nano particles come into contact with bacteria and viruses they disrupt their structure and inhibit cell growth.
4. Research has shown that the catalytic action of silver, in concert with oxygen, provides a powerful sanitizer that virtually eliminates the need for the use of corrosive chlorine.
5. In fourteen languages, the words for silver and money are the same.
6. 24,171 silver-coated, quartz tiles protected NASA’s Megellan spacecraft from overheating under twice the solar radiation experienced orbiting the earth.
7. A new silver-lithium-aluminum alloy is the strongest wrought aluminum alloy known. It has been used on several of the NASA space shuttle missions.
8. In the United States, gold coins ceased to circulate as money with Roosevelt's 1933 call-in. However, the U.S. Mint continued to turn out silver coins until 1965.
9. Over 1.5 billion silver oxide-zinc batteries are supplied to world markets yearly, including miniature-sized batteries for watches, cameras and small electronic devices, and larger batteries for tools and commercial portable TV cameras.
10. The production of polyester fabrics, hydraulic fluids, engine antifreezes, and most flexible plastics, such as Mylar, is made more efficient by the use of silver.
11. The expression 'born with a Silver spoon in their mouth' stems from health rather than wealth status, as children fed with Silver utensils were believed to be healthier.
12. Throughout history, more people have used silver for money than have used gold.
13. Silver production and secondary recovery have failed to meet demand each year of the last fifteen years.
14. Silver is the best conductor of heat of all elements. Its uses in solar panels and automobile rear window defoggers take advantage of this quality.
15. According to accepted statistics, more gold rests in the vaults of the world's central banks than there is aboveground silver.
16. Silver coins have the highest degree of optical reflectivity of all bullion. A Silver mirror can reflect about 95% of the visible light spectrum.
17. More than 2/3 of the Silver bullion produced worldwide is a by-product of lead, copper and zinc mining.
18. In the earliest Egyptian records, Silver was considered more precious than Gold.
19. The name Silver originates from the Old English Anglo-Saxon word 'seolfor' meaning Silver.
20. Argentina was named from Argentum, the element of Silver's Latin name.
21. In 1900, there were approximately 12 billion ounces of silver in the world. Today, that figure has fallen to about 300 million ounces of above-ground, refined silver.
22. Geologists estimate there are 17 ounces of silver on the planet for every ounce of gold. This explains why, for more than 200 years, an ounce of gold has sold for 15-20 times the price of an ounce of silver.
23. Silver has more industrial applications than gold does, with more uses being developed. In most applications silver cannot be substituted by any other metal.
24. Silver’s numerable unique properties are its strength, malleability, and ductility, its electrical and thermal conductivity, its sensitivity to and high reflectance of light and its ability to endure extreme temperature ranges.
25. More than 95% of annual silver consumption is from industrial and decorative uses; photography and jewelry and silverware.
26. One out of every seven pairs of prescription eyeglasses sold in the U.S. incorporates silver.
27. Recent research shows that silver also promotes the production of new cells, increasing the rate of healing in wounds and bone.
28. The regeneration of whole areas of lost skin is being accomplished by the use of silver treatment.
29. Curad bandages, is marketing a line of wound-care products using silver as a natural antibacterial: Curad Silver. The new line uses silver in the wound pad to help protect minor cuts, scrapes, abrasions, lacerations and scalds.
30. Every electrical action in a modern car is activated with silver coated contacts.
31. Everyone is accustomed to silvered mirrors. What is new is invisible silver, a transparent coating of silver on double pane thermal windows. This coating not only rejects the hot summer sun, but also reflects internal house heat inward. A new double layer of silver on glass marketed as "low E squared" is sweeping the window market as it reflects away almost 95% of the hot rays of the sun, creating a new level of household energy savings.
32. The term .925 Solid Sterling Silver comes from the fact that the silver is made from a mixture of 92.5 % pure silver and mixed with copper or another metal.
33. The term “Sterling Silver” is not an easy one as there are several claims, but the most accurate are as follows;
    1. The earliest attestation of the term is in Old French form esterlin, in a charter of the abbey of Les Préaux, dating to either 1085 or 1104. The English chronicler Orderic Vitalis (1075 - c. 1142) uses the Latin forms libræ sterilensium and libræ sterilensis monetæ. The word in origin refers to the newly introduced Norman silver penny.
    2. The most plausible etymology is derivation from a late Old English steorling (with (or like) a "little star"), as some early Norman pennies were imprinted with a small star.
    3. There are a number of obsolete hypotheses. One suggests a connection with starling, and another a supposed connection with easterling, a term for natives of the Baltic or the Hanse towns of eastern Germany. This etymology is itself medieval, suggested by Walter de Pinchebek (ca. 1300) with the explanation that the coin was originally made by moneyers from that region.

MexZotic “The Solid Silver Company”