Silver Price in US Dollars

The US dollar is the most recognized and accepted currency in the world. It is the world reserve currency since Richard Nixon closed the gold window in 1971.

During colonial times the United States used the pound sterling, Spanish dollar and Mexican peso, as well as a variety of local currencies issued by the original thirteen colonies.

As the revolutionary war heated up, the Continental was issued as money by the newly declared independent United States of America. The currency was essential to cover the costs of the revolution against the British, and thus promptly lost most of its value, giving birth to the phrase not worth a Continental.

The Constitution empowers the Federal Government with the authority to coin money. The dollar was adopted in The Coinage Act of 1792 in which the US Mint was founded and the US dollar was decreed to equal one Mexican peso and to contain 27 grams of silver. The gold eagle was also introduced with a denomination of ten dollars and a gold weight of 17 grams, or 1.7 grams per dollar unit. This value was changed down to 1.5 grams in 1834. Both the Mexican peso and the Spanish dollar along with the new silver dollar were legal tender and circulated freely in the United States until 1857.

The purity of silver dollars and gold eagles was set as .900 fine. The silver dollar traded at a discount with respect to the Spanish dollar, due to the fact that it was produced with 371 grains while the Spanish dollar was minted with 377 grains of silver. Therefore, the dollar exchange rate in gold against the pound sterling was £1=$4.86 as opposed to the Spanish dollar’s £1=$4.80.

The gold- and silver-based dollar provided the stability necessary for savings and economic growth in the U.S. throughout the nineteenth century. The relative value of goods and services varied in dollar terms depending on the inflows and outflows of gold and silver to and from the United States. Nonetheless, the stability of the money supply during the 100 years following its introduction caused a reduction in the cost of goods and services over time in dollar terms. In the modern fiat money economy, this is referred to as deflation. During the nineteenth century, it was exactly this deflation that drove savings and investment, and was the main reason why the United States was able to convert from an agrarian economy into an industrial superpower in fewer than 100 years.

The first currency intervention by the federal government was by president Abraham Lincoln in 1862. The mounting costs of the civil war forced him to print paper currency without the backing of gold and silver. The dollar was intensely devalued during this period, and the United States would not return to a gold standard backing up the paper dollar until 1878. The dollar was able to rise to pre-war levels by the turn of the century.

Just as the dollar was recovering its traditional purchasing power, The Gold Standard Act of 1900 was issued, setting the exchange rate between gold and the dollar at $20 per troy ounce and awarding private banks more flexibility for inducing artificial credit expansion, issuing credit without sufficient gold reserves to back up the loans. The Federal Reserve system was approved by Congress in 1913, in which a handful of private banks were handed almost total control over the money supply with the oversight of the Federal Reserve Chairman, a position appointed by the president of the United States. Even though the dollar continued to be backed by gold, its value steadily dropped because of excessive bank credit stimulating prices and equity values. With the 1933 Executive Order 6102, FDR adjusted the exchange rate with gold to $35 per troy ounce, further devaluing the dollar. In addition, the use of or possession of gold currency was banned. Following World War II the gold standard was exchanged for a worldwide dollar standard, where the dollar acted as the world reserve currency backed by gold at $35 per ounce. But soaring government spending in following decades put pressure on the dollar’s fixing to gold, and doubts emerged concerning whether the US would be able to maintain the backing of the dollar with gold. Between 1968 and 1971 a number of tweaks were made to the exchange rate and gold was at $42.22 per ounce when the dollar was floated by Nixon, ending the Bretton Woods treaty and turning the dollar into a bona-fide fiat currency, backed by nothing.

Silver prices in US dollars hover around $32.50 per ounce.

Bullion coins issued in the United States:

Flowing Hair Silver Dollar
Silver nickels, dimes, quarters and half-dollars (commonly referred to as junk silver)
Half Eagle ($5 gold coin)
Eagle ($10 gold coin)
Double Eagle ($20 gold coin)

The US Mint issues a number of bullion coins, including one ounce gold American eagles, gold American buffaloes, and silver American eagles.