Silver coinage without gold standard?

James_Green_1982

Is it possible for a currency to use silver in its coinage, without maintaining a 'gold standard'?

phillw

James_Green_1982 wrote: »

Is it possible for a currency to use silver in its coinage, without maintaining a 'gold standard'?

Of course, silver is a bit expensive though.

AG47

phillw wrote: »

Of course, silver is a bit expensive though.

Silver is the cheapest it has ever been in history

Even a min wage part time worker could acquire a kings ransome in silver in a short time frame

phillw

AG47 wrote: »

Silver is the cheapest it has ever been in history

But it's not cheaper than the alternatives.

AG47 wrote: »

Even a min wage part time worker could acquire a kings ransome in silver in a short time frame

Well obviously not, because a kings ransom is measured in monetary terms and not weight or volume.

AG47

phillw wrote: »

But it's not cheaper than the alternatives.



Well obviously not, because a kings ransom is measured in monetary terms and not weight or volume.

Silver certainly is cheaper than the alternative which is mainly gold.

The gold silver ratio is naturally 10-15:1 for thousands of years and will always be.

At the moment we are in an anomaly with silver being so cheap, it’s 85oz silver valued to 1 of gold, this is temporary and will correct soon.

AG47

phillw wrote: »

But it's not cheaper than the alternatives.



Well obviously not, because a kings ransom is measured in monetary terms and not weight or volume.

Silver is money. It always has been and always will be some as gold. In many languages the words silver and money are interchangeable

A kings ransome has ways been about a talent, which I bout 20kg of silver, or 20yrs average wage

This can be bought now for bout £10,000.

£10k for 20yrs worth wages of silver. The temporary cheap silver in historic terms can not last, the correction will come

James_Green_1982

Thanks for the replies. Always interesting to see others' views.
My thinking was that silver has tended to be removed from circulating coins at roughly (but not exactly) the same time as currencies come off the gold standard.

So by definition, having circulating coinage made of silver must fix the silver price to that currency (or vice-versa)?

For example - if a 10p coin contained 10g of silver - then by definition £1 would be equal to 100g of silver. So anyone could (in theory) exchange all their currency notes for silver.

This wouldn't have any direct effect of fixing the currency price to gold - but the mechanism would be via the gold/silver ratio.

AG47

James_Green_1982 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. Always interesting to see others' views.
My thinking was that silver has tended to be removed from circulating coins at roughly (but not exactly) the same time as currencies come off the gold standard.

So by definition, having circulating coinage made of silver must fix the silver price to that currency (or vice-versa)?

For example - if a 10p coin contained 10g of silver - then by definition £1 would be equal to 100g of silver. So anyone could (in theory) exchange all their currency notes for silver.

This wouldn't have any direct effect of fixing the currency price to gold - but the mechanism would be via the gold/silver ratio.

If 10g was worth 10p then one entire pound would be a lot of money.

This is actually where the Latin word pound came from. It's why it's written as LBs.

Kids ask why is there pounds talking about money, and pounds talking about weight? The answer is they used to be the same thing. When you ask how much does something cost,nyou say this many pounds of silver.

But they were running out of silver,Mao they just used animal skins with promises to pay this many pound of silver. Later they used paper promises, ofcourse silver is too rare to fulfill those promises and they all became broken promises just like the pound notes we use today. There is not enough silver in the world to back all the Unbacked currency. Well there is but silver would be worth million of pounds per ounce.

There is less than a seventh of an ounce of silver left available for every human on earth.

James_Green_1982

AG47 wrote: »

If 10g was worth 10p then one entire pound would be a lot of money.

This is actually where the Latin word pound came from. It's why it's written as LBs.

Kids ask why is there pounds talking about money, and pounds talking about weight? The answer is they used to be the same thing. When you ask how much does something cost,nyou say this many pounds of silver.

But they were running out of silver,Mao they just used animal skins with promises to pay this many pound of silver. Later they used paper promises, ofcourse silver is too rare to fulfill those promises and they all became broken promises just like the pound notes we use today. There is not enough silver in the world to back all the Unbacked currency. Well there is but silver would be worth million of pounds per ounce.

There is less than a seventh of an ounce of silver left available for every human on earth.

By today's price - that 10p coin would be worth £3.72 and £1 (100g) would be worth £37.20.

If there was only 1g of silver in a 10p coin, then £1 would become worth £3.72.

Obviously the reality is that silver would still be worth what it's worth in terms of purchasing power. It's just the currency figures that would change.

But if you fixed a currency to silver - by terms of coinage, without fixing the currency to gold - what would happen?

Because in the past we have had silver coinage and a gold standard overlapping at times - and not overlapping at other times.

AG47

James_Green_1982 wrote: »

By today's price - that 10p coin would be worth £3.72 and £1 (100g) would be worth £37.20.

If there was only 1g of silver in a 10p coin, then £1 would become worth £3.72.

Obviously the reality is that silver would still be worth what it's worth in terms of purchasing power. It's just the currency figures that would change.

But if you fixed a currency to silver - by terms of coinage, without fixing the currency to gold - what would happen?

Because in the past we have had silver coinage and a gold standard overlapping at times - and not overlapping at other times.

Not sure what your reasoning is there. Remember currency is temporary they come and go. Gold and silver are always money.

An ounce of gold or 15oz of silver would always buy a handmade suit from Ancient Rome.

You have to measure stuff with stuff, ounces of metal, barrels of oil, bushels of wheat. Take temporary currency out of it, and measure stuff with stuff.

Silver is money, pounds of silver is money. Pounds of weight or money are the same thing, we are just in a temporary time where currency is being expanded around the world since the temporary new international monetary system that the world went onto in 1971.

We were told about 50 years ago it would be temporary. When the temporary system ends the world will go back to monetary precious metal backing as it was before 1971 and the temporary system was brought in.

This is why central banks are trying to stock up on monetary precious metal

James_Green_1982

AG47 wrote: »

Silver certainly is cheaper than the alternative which is mainly gold.

The gold silver ratio is naturally 10-15:1 for thousands of years and will always be.

At the moment we are in an anomaly with silver being so cheap, it’s 85oz silver valued to 1 of gold, this is temporary and will correct soon.

Today, one troy pound of Sterling silver is worth approx £128.

The gold sovereign was previously used as the £1 coin. Today a sovereign coin is worth approx £245.

So in the past was one troy pound of sterling silver fixed at the same price as one gold sovereign coin?