Monthly Archives: February 2012

Mexico Lobbies to Place Silver in the Hands of Savers

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Due to recent bouts of blistering inflation, the government of Mexico is contemplating monetary reform that could result in the monetization of silver. According to Hugo Salinas-Price, successful businessman and president of the Mexican Civic Association for Silver, Mexico represents one of the few world economies that approves of national legislation creating a fiat currency alternative.

Salinas-Price maintains that in order for large-scale financial reform to work, the system for designating and valuing legal tender must be simplified. Creating a working system by which silver is legal tender, would require stabilizing its value, so that precious metal speculation could not take place.

The Mexican Civic Association for Silver, (Asociacion Civica Mexicana Pro Plata) believes that creating a new one-ounce coin, bearing no engraved designation of monetary value, would solve the volatility issues that silver currently faces. Mexico’s central bank would be allowed to increase the value of the new Libertad coin when the commodity price of silver surges, but the value of the coin would remain stable, if silver’s value declines.

Lobbying efforts are currently underway to institute the new silver coin, which Salinas-Price and his cohorts believe will generate a safe haven for the Mexican middle class.

http://news.silverseek.cm/SilverSeek/1323272915.php

What are the top uses for silver?

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Gold gets all of the headlines but a precious metal named silver that’s been around thousands of years to make jewelry and decorative items is closing the gap; think electrical products. Unlike gold and platinum, precious metals are not very abundant in the Earth’s crust. For a while, silver was the Rodney Dangerfield of precious metals; no respect. Strangely enough with some of its necessary uses in society, one would think respect would be the last thing people would remember about silver. To give you a refresher course, here are some of the top uses of silver in electronics.
** The production of bearings
** Electrical products used by dentists – think amalgam fillings
** Batteries
** Soldering
However, the most important use of silver is in electronics and electronic uses. We found about 20 percent of silver is used for electronics since electricity flows through silver more easily than any other metal. Other electronic uses in the top 10 are printed circuit boards, silver-tipped switches in automobiles, superconductors for cable TV, telephones, and devices that use digital electronics. Silver; it’s not only necessary, it’s required,

Silver in Ancient Times

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Silver has been a precious metal for centuries, reaching at least as far back as the city-state of Greece, and possibly even further than that. For instance, the silver standard was what helped bring Athens to power as they could mint silver coins and create a method to regulate trade through this minting. However silver was used as an accessory long before this, with ancient people making everything from clothing clasps to rings and bracelets out of silver and silver alloys for both practical as well as decorative purposes.

To assemble a timeline, silver mines goes back at least to 500 B.C. in Europe, though these are just the records that we have from city-states. It’s entirely possible that back many centuries further silver was being used by peoples like the Persians and the Egyptians, though in both of these cultures silver seemed to take a backseat to gold, which was purer, was immune to oxidation and which could be shaped and stampled more easily than silver using the methods available to the ancient smiths and craftsmen.

The Colorado Silver Boom

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Even though silver in Colorado was discovered in 1859, silver mining didn’t reach its boom until the mid 1870′s. Gold had more worth than silver and therefore was more profitable.

The Bland Allison Act of 1878 required that the U.S. Government buy more silver, making it more competitive and ultimately raising the price of silver. The U.S. became the second largest buyer of silver, India being the first. This led to more silver mines in Colorado bringing more people to that state with the hopes of making a fortune in silver.

Railways were incorporated in the mountainous regions, and the town of Aspen was saved from being a ghost town. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 had the government buy twice as much silver as before.

But by 1893, the Sherman Act was repealed and silver prices dropped. Colorado’s silver boom came to a crash, but the new businesses that the boom brought survived. Mining silver didn’t cease and the other minerals found since has kept the mining business alive in Colorado.

For more information check out http://denvercolorado.org/history-places-of-interest/colorado-silver-boom/ and http://www.westernmininghistory.com/articles/9/page1.

Industrial Demand For Silver Spirals Upward, Despite Faltering Economies

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According to the Silver Institute, demand for silver used in industrial production is projected to approach 40 percent in the years spanning 2010 to 2015. Positive industrial fundamentals are cited for physical silver, due to a relatively stable market that is both established and emerging in developed economies.

Continued silver demand for fabrication purposes is likely to prolong its surge, since silver has no equal for the industrial processes in which it is consumed. Photovoltaics and electronics are two of the largest, continually increasing uses for silver. Growth in global middle classes secures the desire for electronic products, considered virtual necessities in most developed countries.

Substitution of cheaper silver for other expensive technological metals, like palladium and platinum is another positive impetus for future silver valuation. The search for silver substitutes appears unlikely to produce scientifically adequate or economically feasible substitutes.

Robust growth for other fabrication applications for silver appears likely. These uses include medical applications, batteries, and water purification technology. The only real downside risk for silver appears to be lagging economic growth, but history shows that physical silver typically rebounds rapidly after such fiscal downturns.

http://silverinvestingnews.com/10299/industrial-demand-strong-support-for-silver.html