Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal. The metal occurs naturally in its pure, free form (native silver), as an alloy with gold and other metals, and in minerals such as argentite and chlorargyrite. Most silver is produced as a by-product of copper, gold, lead, and zincrefining.
Silver has long been valued as a precious metal, and it is used to make ornaments, jewelry, high-value tableware, utensils (hence the termsilverware), and currency coins. Today, silver metal is also used in electrical contacts and conductors, in mirrors and in catalysis of chemical reactions. Its compounds are used in photographic film and dilute silver nitrate solutions and other silver compounds are used asdisinfectants and microbiocides. While many medical antimicrobial uses of silver have been supplanted by antibiotics, further research into clinical potential continues.
On March 2011 Silver reached a price of about $35 USD per troy ounce, silver is about 1/40th the price of gold. The ratio has varied from 1/15 to 1/100 in the past 100 years.
In 1980, the silver price rose to a peak for modern times of US$49.45 per troy ounce (T.O.) due to market manipulation of Nelson Bunker Hunt and Herbert Hunt. Some time after Silver Thursday the price was back to $10 per troy ounce. By December 2001 the price had dropped to US$4.15/T.O., and in May 2006 it had risen back as high as US$15.21/T.O. In March 2008, silver reached US$21.34/T.O. In early March 2011, silver reached a new 31-year-high of $36 a Troy Ounce.
In earlier times silver has commanded much higher prices. In the early 15th century, the price of silver is estimated to have surpassed $800 per ounce, based on 1998 dollars.[51] The discovery of massive silver deposits in the New World during the succeeding centuries has caused the price to diminish greatly.
The price of silver is important in Judaic Law. The lowest fiscal amount that a Jewish court, or Beth Din, can convene to adjudicate a case over is a shova pruta (value of a Babylonianpruta coin). This is fixed at 1/8 of a gram of pure, unrefined silver, at market price.
