In French, the same word « argent » means money and silver, like in India, where « rupee » is the name of the currency but means also silver coin.  When this expression was used by our grandparents or their own grandparents, it did not mean having stocks or a pension plan with your banker; it meant putting silver coins in a box in the basement or attic, just in case…

• your bank would experience serious financial difficulties
• the currency would undergo a further debasement
• for an electronic or other reason, you are deprived of access to your savings stored in your bank accounts

Without even remembering that it's a very good way to pass on your heritage, without the state taking half of it in the process.

Silver has been currency for 6,000 years. Hammurabi of the first dynasty of Babylon, reigned from -1792 BC. So that no one is unaware of the laws, he had them engraved on stelae placed at the entrance to each city. One of these laws set the daily minimum wage for laborers at 1.88 grams of silver and for skilled workers at 2.1 grams.
Since the net daily minimum wage in France is now €58, an ounce of silver should be €987 or $1,117 instead of $24.

The question remains to know whether Silver will return to its fair value in a relatively short term?
Personally, I am convinced of it.

To convey this certainty to you, I will need several articles, so be patient. But remember that at the time of this writing, the Silver is still only worth $23. When it will hit  $50 an ounce, you'll have to hurry to buy some, because you'll only have just a few weeks before prices double again, if my informations are correct.

Silver, an increasingly rare metal

Gold and silver are precious metals, due to their rarity compared to other minerals in the earth's crust.
These are the two metals, which have been most universally used as money over the centuries.

Athens was able to experience its heyday and domination in the fifth century BC, thanks to the Laurion mines which produced a large amount of silver. The Athenian currency then became the currency of reference in trade in the Mediterranean world. When the mines ran out, Athens was no longer able to sustain the armies guarding its trading posts. This is the characteristic of all mines, they eventually run out.

The famous gold rush in 1849 especially made it possible to discover large reserves of silver in the United States, so much so that in 1873, the American Treasury will abandon bi-metallism to only be under the regime of the "gold standard". Nonetheless, everyday currency was still silver. It was not until July 23, 1965, that President Lyndon Johnson put an end to it with a speech that has gone down in history.
“Each of you knows that this change is necessary, for a very simple reason: silver is a rare metal.
Our consumption of silver increases with our population and with the development of our economy. It is a fact that we consume twice as much silver as we extract annually. Knowing this global shortage of silver and the rapid increase in our coin needs, we must reduce our dependence on silver when producing coins so as not to experience chronic shortages. »

Thus, gradually, all countries stopped producing and circulating silver currencies. In France, the 5 Francs semeuse silver coin was demonetized in February 1980.

What Lyndon Johnson did not know was that the computer era was about to begin, a great consumer of silver-metal, followed by the era of all electronics and mobile telephony even as the Consumer Society was going to spread all over the planet. The mining industry had to produce more and more silver.

As this chart shows, America's silver mines have been slowly depleting.
In 1993, it was necessary to extract 12 times more ore than in 1935, to produce approximately the same quantity of silver.
Silver grade of the ore collapsed by 91.8%

Today, year after year, according to the USGS, American silver mines only produce 32 Moz.

If we look at the largest mines in the world, during the last 15 years, the silver content of the ores has been divided by 2.

The international reference for defining soil reserves is the USGS (United States Geological Survey). Each year, this US government agency publishes production figures for different minerals and the reserves remaining in the ground.

Definitions

Reserves: corresponds to the share of “basic reserves” that can be extracted or produced at the time studied.

Base Reserves: Resource identified, measured and quantified, meeting minimum physical and chemical criteria used in the mining industry. This may include reserves that can be economically exploited over a planning horizon for future production, and taking into account the improvement of technologies, “reserves” (see above) and reserves that cannot be economically exploited in a measurable future.

Here are the Silver reserves identified in 1995
USGS-RESERVES-1994.jpg

As you can see underneath, in 2021 there are no more Base Reserves. The mines are now exploiting veins, which were considered non-exploitable under the economic conditions of 1995. It was from 2009 that the USGS abolished the notion of "base reserves".

Anyway, as you can see the current reserves correspond to 20 years of production.

Silver has always been a rare metal, it will become even more so.

And everything that is rare is expensive. It is therefore high time to ask yourself the question:

Did you put some silver aside ?