Silver's high of $49.45 per ounce in 1980 would equal about $140 per ounce in today's dollars adjusted to the consumer price index and about $400 per ounce in today's dollars adjusted to the real rate of price inflation. (see Silver Chart here)Despite silver's huge gains in recent months, we have yet to see silver rise by $2 or more in a single day. When we start to see a true "silver mania" with investors around the world rushing out of their U.S. dollars and panic buying silver, we expect to see silver gain by $5 to $10 in a single day on more than one occasion.
Only ten times more silver has been produced in world history than gold and from the years 1000 to 1873, a period of 873 years, the gold/silver ratio remained between 10 and 16. In fact, the Coinage Act of 1834 defined a gold/silver ratio of 16. The gold/silver ratio started to rise after silver was demonetized in 1873. Despite silver being demonetized, we saw the gold/silver ratio return to 16 on three occasions during the past century: in 1919, 1968, and 1980.
Americans with their savings in U.S. dollars can today only afford 3/5ths of the ice cream that they could have bought three years ago, according to currentsilverprice.net/， but those with their savings in gold have maintained their purchasing power, and those with their savings in silver have greatly increased their purchasing power. We are sure that the gold/silver ratio will decline to at least 16 within the next few years, and that will mean those with silver will once again more than double their purchasing power. Considering that the gold/silver ratio overshot to the upside and was as high as 100 in 1991, we fully expect it to overcorrect to the downside and possibly reach a low of 10 this decade. That would mean a more than tripling of ones purchasing power from the current ratio of 35.
