Silver – White Gold: From ancient times to modern times

Silver – the white metal, a class of its own. The most traded commodity in the market after gold. Though traded as ingots or coins by men, women have a lust for silver as jewelry. Leave alone the jewels, silver finds a major place as utensils. The presence of a silver utensil on the dining table adds a lot of grandeur to the place.

The bond between man and silver usage dates back to centuries. Many civilizations have used silver as a trading entity or in common terms ‘money’. Plenty of Greek and Roman civilization coins can still be witnessed in museum’s around the world. Romans and Greeks had a lust for silver ornaments and maybe we can call them as the inventors of silver rings to this world. The white metal had its enormous growth during the 2nd century AD when the romans used it as a major part of their currency.

Apart for the use of silver as jewelry and utensils, ancient people were very much interested in making artifacts out of this unique metal. Several artifacts made out of silver can still be seen till date. In fact the use of Silver coins have been indicated during the period of Jesus Christ too.

The early 16th and 17th centuries saw the usage of silver as a trading commodity as man began to move around the world for trade. Hundreds of stories of silver coin treasures being carried around the world in ships and some being sunk in the sea are still around. The lust for this metal has been growing steadily ever since that and continues to grow in the modern days too.

Modern day silver had a great deal of applications in all kinds of industry from chemical to semiconductor. But still silver has a unique place in the heart of the humans. It’s also termed as the poor man’s gold. Human’s attachment with silver continues and a major chunk of the silver mined or produced is used for ornamental jewelry purpose. The sterling silver jewelry what we see around from the pendants, bracelets, hair barrettes chains, rings, are all silver bracelet, a variant of silver used mainly for jewelry. In fact silver can be coated with a fine layer of gold to give it a look like gold jewelry. This ability to make silver look like gold has won the hearts of women around the globe.

Apart from the same, silver in any form be it ingots or jewelry or utensil will always been considered as an investment for a long time apart from its functional aspect.