Why Silver Is Used For Coinage
Silver coins were among the first coins ever used, thousands of years ago. The silver standard was used for centuries in many places of the world. And the use of silver for coins, instead of other materials, has many reasons:
- Silver is liquid, easily tradable, and with a low spread between the prices to buy and sell. A low spread typically occurs when an item is fungible.
- Silver is easily transportable. Silver and gold have a high value to weight ratio.
- Silver can be divisible into small units without destroying its value; precious metals can be coined from bars, or melted down into bars again.
- A silver coin is fungible: that is, one unit or piece must be equivalent to another.
- A silver coin has a certain weight, or measure, to be verifiably countable.
- A silver coin is long lasting and durable. A silver coin is not subject to decay.
- A silver coin has a stable value and an intrinsic value. Silver has been an ever rare metal.
Read more about this topic: Silver Coin
Famous quotes containing the words silver and/or coinage:
“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery, and the sacrifice or wealth and chastity, which used to be said to be the greatest of human disasters, a mere flea-bite in comparison.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“Designs in connection with postage stamps and coinage may be described, I think, as the silent ambassadors on national taste.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)