Introduction
What is Silver? How does natural silver occur? And why have humans been digging it out of the ground for thousands of years? This article will briefly cover natural silver in nature and silvers properties. It will also briefly cover the history of silver and the history of silver bullion.
Natural Silver
Silver is a naturally forming soft whitish metal. Also known by the acronym Ag on the periodic table. Silvers melting point starts at 961 °C (1763 °F). Silver has some very impressive properties that make it have many industrial uses. One of the properties being that silver has Anti-Bacterial Properties, making it a good metal for various medical purposes.
Natural Silver often occurs where there is an abundant amount of quartz. The photo to the right (or below if on mobile) shows an example of silver in its most natural form.
In ancient times it was easier to mine silver because of the abundance of larger pieces. Over the centuries, mining silver has become harder as the global supply is depleted. Meaning we require greater technology to extract the silver that our ancient contemporaries were incapable of mining.
History Of Silver
Silver has been used as a currency or for barter by human beings since the beginning of human civilization. Even before the first coins were minted, humans poured silver bullion bars for trade. From this, they developed techniques for testing and verifying these bars were above a certain purity.
Canada and America both used silver to mint their coinage all the way until 1967(for Canada). A Canadian dime from 1967 or earlier, just based on melt value, is often worth 1.50$ – 2$+, whereas a dime minted after 1967 remains only worth 10 cents.
Today while we don’t see it as often, and it is no longer in our money, it remains an important part of our society. Today it’s used in our electronics, medical equipment, renewable energy, clothing, and so much more.
Silver Bullion
Bullion is perhaps the most likely way to see Fine Silver. Fine Silver is any silver coin, round, or bar that is 0.999%+ pure silver. While this number changes from country to country, it often remains above what is considered “sterling silver.” Some bullion is bought and sold with either 80% or 90% purity or what is also known as junk silver. Silver’s properties allow it to remain shiny and beautiful with minimal worries. Even if your silver develops “milk spots,” there are things that can be done to remove it.
The Canadian Silver Maple is one of the world’s most popular 1 Troy Ounce of 0.9999% Fine Silver. It often competes with the American Silver Eagle for which coins are better to collect/stack. At the same time, others dislike it because of the connection to the British Monarchy.
Silver is gaining momentum again as an investment. Young investors are starting to look at this precious metal in a new light when compared to the more expensive gold of the previous generations.
Silver Coins
Silver coins are one of our staples here at Invest In History Co. We carry a wide range of silver bullion and numismatic coins. Maybe you love Roman history and want to purchase a Roman Denarius to start your collection. Or you love to stack silver bullion. Below is a link to all of the silver bullion we currently have in stock.
Silver Bullion
We are not a large bullion dealer but we do our best to carry bullion so that our customers can purchase bullion alongside our other products.
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