Gold
Gold vs Silver: How the Two Precious Metals Really Differ
Gold and silver share a monetary past but behave very differently today, from volatility and storage bulk to premiums, liquidity and demand.
Gold and silver share a monetary past but behave very differently today, from volatility and storage bulk to premiums, liquidity and demand.
Electronics, solar panels, brazing alloys and medicine: a plain-English tour of the industrial uses that make silver more than a monetary metal.
How two Texas brothers built an enormous silver position in the late 1970s, how exchange rule changes ended it and what Silver Thursday still teaches.
A practical comparison of silver coins and silver bars: premiums over spot, divisibility, recognition when selling, counterfeit risk and storage space.
How physically backed gold ETFs work, what they cost, which risks they carry and how they compare with owning coins and bars directly.
Where new gold comes from each year, why mine output changes slowly, what all-in sustaining costs measure and how recycling fills the gap.
What a Good Delivery gold or silver bar is, the weight and purity rules it must meet, how refiners are accredited and why the standard matters.
Why the United States removed silver from its dimes and quarters in 1965, what replaced it, and how the 40% silver half dollar fits into the story.
From the Coinage Act of 1873 to Bryan's 1896 speech and the Gold Standard Act of 1900: how silver divided American politics for a generation.
How Executive Order 6102 required Americans to hand in gold, how the Gold Reserve Act revalued gold to $35 and when private ownership became legal again.
Silver & Gold Coin Blog is a small library of explainers about precious metals. Each guide takes one question, such as why central banks buy gold, what the Commitments of Traders report shows or how a bag of old US silver coins is valued, and answers it in plain English, with the history and mechanics needed to make sense of it. The aim is understanding, not tips: you will not find price forecasts or recommendations to buy or sell here.
The guides fall into four broad areas, each with its own section.
Daily market commentary has its place, but it ages quickly. A note explaining why gold rose on a Tuesday is rarely useful a month later, and a long archive of such notes is hard to learn from. Many readers arrive with a more basic question: what actually drives these prices, and how do the pieces of the market connect?
Evergreen guides answer that question in a form that stays useful. They describe mechanisms, such as how real interest rates affect the cost of holding gold or why futures volumes dwarf physical supply, and they use historical episodes as illustrations rather than as news. When a figure appears, it is a historical one that can be checked, not a current price that will be out of date by tomorrow. Once you understand the mechanisms, the daily headlines become much easier to interpret on your own.
If you are new to precious metals, start with gold versus silver, which sets out how the two metals differ in supply, demand, volatility and practical handling. Then read the companion guides on what moves gold prices and what moves silver prices, which map the main drivers of each. The gold-silver ratio guide shows how the two prices relate over time and why the ratio is watched.
For the policy side, interest rates, QE and precious metals explains real yields, the 2013 taper tantrum and why jobs reports move metals. Central banks and gold traces official reserves from the end of dollar convertibility in 1971 to the buying of recent years.
To understand how prices are formed, read COMEX, paper and physical, then reading the Commitments of Traders report. Demand from the world’s largest consuming countries is covered in China, India and Asian demand, while reading mint bullion coin sales explains what headline coin figures do and do not show.
Finally, two practical guides deal with physical metal: 90 percent silver coin bags, on pre-1965 US coinage, and how to store bullion, on home storage, bank boxes and professional vaults.
Each guide stands on its own, so you can start wherever your question lies. Guides link to one another where a topic overlaps, and the four sections group them by theme. Tables and lists summarize key facts, and most guides close with a short recap for quick review.
Nothing here is personal financial advice. The guides describe how markets and products work; whether metals suit your own situation depends on factors only you, or an adviser who knows your circumstances, can weigh. Where a fact is uncertain or disputed, the guides say so rather than guess. More about the editorial approach is on the about page.
This web address was once used by a precious-metals dealer’s blog that published daily market notes until about 2018. The current site is independent and run by a new editorial team. It has no connection with Investment Rarities or any other dealer, does not sell metals and is not affiliated with any mint, exchange or regulator. All the content published here is new and written for this site.
What moves the metals, how the markets work and how to hold coins and bullion sensibly
Silver