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I don't think density was a factor, since volume is hard to gauge to people, you'll remember Archimedes I suppose. The resistance to corrosion and the facility to divide would be better motives.

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by Antoni Jaume on Mon Nov 21st, 2011 at 04:26:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]
BTW, the wiki gives an abundance of silver at odds with yor values

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth's_crust

Silver is around 0.070 ppm, while gold is around 0.004 ppm

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by Antoni Jaume on Mon Nov 21st, 2011 at 04:31:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]
You should take what Wikipaedia says with a grain of salt. At present prices silver is one of the scarcest metals around. Take a look at this: Material Scarcity and its effect on Energy Solutions [pdf!]. In any event it is the above ground stock that matters.

Vencit omnia veritas.
by Luis de Sousa (luis[dot]a[dot]de[dot]sousa[at]gmail[dot]com) on Mon Nov 21st, 2011 at 05:14:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Silver has industrial applications. Gold just piles up.

But this industrial utility is a relatively new thing, compared to the gold standard.

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Mon Nov 21st, 2011 at 05:17:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Something like half of all gold mined in most years goes into jewelry in India and China. At a sufficient price it will turn back into bullion.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Mon Nov 21st, 2011 at 05:33:59 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Of course. That's why I took the lesser quantity for silver and the greater for gold. Those are crustal abundance, so they should be of the order of mining availability. I've looked at your reference, however I think it is a projection that take present price and use, as primary source of silver get exhausted, the price will rise, so the demands will reduce and/or silver sources that are not now considered profitable will. Then there's recycling.

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by Antoni Jaume on Mon Nov 21st, 2011 at 05:34:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Luis may have been referring to currently available stocks. Silver is an industrial metal, among other uses it is an excellent alloy at a few percent in electrical solder, it is useful for electrical contacts, especially on switches, as its tarnish tends to be self wiping, etc. So during the course of the 20th century vast quantities of silver have come to be distributed to landfills in economically unrecoverable quantities. By contrast, most of the gold ever mined is still in existence. The rest may be on the sea floor or buried in random forgotten caches.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Mon Nov 21st, 2011 at 05:20:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes. Remember this post?

Vencit omnia veritas.
by Luis de Sousa (luis[dot]a[dot]de[dot]sousa[at]gmail[dot]com) on Mon Nov 21st, 2011 at 05:29:44 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Folk of the past didn't think as you, it seems:

You should held a sovereign on one hand and a coin of another metal in another hand to understand what I mean. You could also go after the history of the word karat. Besides that, other metals exist that do not corrode and are easy to divide.

Vencit omnia veritas.

by Luis de Sousa (luis[dot]a[dot]de[dot]sousa[at]gmail[dot]com) on Mon Nov 21st, 2011 at 05:27:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
That is a relatively recent development, gold had been in use quite some time before. Archimedes, remember?

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by Antoni Jaume on Mon Nov 21st, 2011 at 05:37:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Archimedes used silver money.

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Mon Nov 21st, 2011 at 05:46:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]
you do not know the story of how he discovered the principle of Archimedes and the eureka exclamation? It is claimed that the tyrant of Syracuse had a goldsmith make a gold crown, however he was suspicious that maybe the crown was not really equal to the gold he had given. Since Archimedes was at hands, he asked him to solve this question. So Archimedes was taking a bath when he observed that when he had entered the water the level had rised. He now had an answer! He got out of the bath, and still naked ran crying 'Eureka!' 'I've found it' etc.

res humą m'és alič
by Antoni Jaume on Mon Nov 21st, 2011 at 06:16:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The ancient coinage was made from gold, silver, and bronze.  The coins themselves were alloys: silver and copper were added to gold, bronze was added to silver, lead and zinc to bronze.  Gold was mostly a currency-of-account and a savings vehicle since they were too valuable for the average shopkeeper.  The latter two were the usual currency-of-exchange.  

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere
by ATinNM on Mon Nov 21st, 2011 at 06:35:33 PM EST
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