by James Rickards
Daily Reckoning
While gold gets most of the headlines (for good reason), silver is often ignored. Silver is sometimes referred to as “poor man’s gold.” But it shouldn’t be ignored. Silver has a long history as a monetary metal. It also has many industrial applications that make it valuable.
Today, we’re going to take an in-depth look at this important metal.
The Roman Republic and the later Roman Empire minted a popular silver coin called the denarius. One denarius was the daily wage for unskilled labor and Roman soldiers.
Of course, in the late Empire, it was debased by mixing the silver with base metals. The decline of the Roman Empire went hand in hand with the decline of sound money.
Silver was also an important monetary metal in China, adopted to end hyperinflation caused by overissuance of paper money.