Mail Shirt - East Europe / Prob. 2nd half XV cent.

[Victrix]

Originally Posted by Interested Party

Thank you! That is fantastic information. At this time in central Europe silver seems much more valuable than now. Maybe the basis of silver's value is the amount of human labor it takes to acquire it. Thus, making it much less of a stable medium of exchange over time than generally thought. Though if you think of the current pay for a black smith in an underdeveloped country the price you gave in silver still line up.

Today half the production of silver is as a byproduct in the mining of zinc, lead and copper. So I guess there is sometimes excess supply of the metal. Although generally regarded as a precious metal, it also has industrial use making demand for the metal more cyclical than gold. A lot of the demand for gold comes from central banks who hold it as part of their foreign currency reserves. Silver is appreciated for its beauty in jewelry and decoration, but a problem is that it oxidates which requires labour intensive regular polishing. All this means the price of silver today is notoriously more volatile than gold.