a resource for coin collectors and investors
Silver, like other precious metals, may be used as an investment and store of value.
The circulating coins of most countries used to contain silver, but
those days are now long gone as rising inflation caused the price of
silver to exceed the coin's
face value. Many of these coins were not melted down and can be
bought today as an investment.
Silver often tracks the gold price, although the ratio can vary as silver is not used purely as a store of value for investors, it also has many industrial uses.
The use of silver in items such as electrical appliances and medical products has increased in recent years. New applications for silver are being explored in batteries, superconductors and microcircuits, which may further increase non-investment demand.
The expansion of the middle classes in emerging economies aspiring to Western lifestyles and products has also contributed to a long-term rise in industrial usage. Even so, due to the advent of digital cameras the enormous reduction in the use of silver-based photographic film has tended to offset this.