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Concept
Silver standard
Summary
The silver standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of silver. Silver was far more widespread than gold as the monetary standard worldwide, from the Sumerians 3000 BC until 1873. Following the discovery in the 16th century of large deposits of silver at the Cerro Rico in Potosí, Bolivia, an international silver standard came into existence in conjunction with the Spanish pieces of eight. These silver dollar coins played the role of an international trading currency for nearly four hundred years.
The move away from the silver to the gold standard began in the 18th century when Great Britain set the gold guinea’s price in silver higher than international prices on the recommendation of Sir Isaac Newton, attracting gold and putting them on a de facto gold standard. Great Britain formalised the gold standard in 1821 and introduced it to its colonies afterwards. Imperial Germany’s move to the gold standard in 1873 triggered the same move to the rest of Europe and the world for the next 35 years, leaving only China (and, until 1930, the French Indochinese piastre) on the silver standard. By 1935 China and the rest of the world abandoned the silver and gold standards, respectively, in favour of government fiat currencies pegged to the pound sterling or the U.S. dollar.
The use of commodity money can be traced to the cultures of the Bronze Age c 3300 BC, with bronze, silver and gold being the most prominent. However, the first commodity to satisfy all the functions of money was silver under the Sumerians of Mesopotamia as early as 3100 BC. Shortly after they developed writing c 3300 BC the Sumerians recorded the use of silver as the standard of value c 3100 to 2500 BC along with barley. Sometime before 2500 BC the silver shekel became their standard currency, with tablets recording the price of timber, grains, salaries, slaves etc. in shekels.
For millennia it was also silver, not gold, which was the real basis of the domestic economies: the foundation for most money-of-account systems, for payment of wages and salaries, and for most local retail trade.
Official source
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