Silver spot price chart and graph, last 30 and 90 days
Loading the 30-day silver chart from the live market feed…
And the wider 90-day window, for the fuller picture of the range:
Loading the 90-day silver chart from the live market feed…
What moves the silver price?
Silver lives a double life that gold does not. Roughly half of all silver consumed each year goes into industry: electronics, solar panels, medical uses, photography's descendants. The other half is investment and jewelry. So silver's chart answers two masters at once, the factory floor and the fear trade, which is why it swings harder in both directions than gold, whose price is almost purely a store-of-value story.
Traders compress that relationship into the gold-silver ratio: how many ounces of silver one ounce of gold buys. When the ratio is historically wide, silver is cheap relative to gold; when it narrows, silver has been outrunning it. For a seller the ratio is context, not a formula: both metals are priced live on this site, and your payout comes off the number you can see, not the relationship between them.
History has produced two famous vertical moves: the 1980 spike, when the Hunt brothers' attempt to corner the silver market drove the price to what was then an all-time record before it collapsed, and the 2011 run, when silver came within reach of that old record again before falling back. Both peaks made fortunes for people who happened to sell into them, and both punished everyone who waited for a little more.
What does silver price history mean when you want to sell?
The same two honest readings as any metal. The level: silver near the top of its own 90-day range means your coins, flatware and bars are worth more today than almost any day this quarter. The volatility: silver's swings are wider than gold's, so the cost of waiting cuts deeper in both directions. What no chart can do is predict the next move, and 1980 and 2011 are the permanent reminders that the peak only ever looks obvious afterward.
Turn today's level into your number: the silver coin melt calculator for 90 percent coinage, or the sterling calculator for flatware and serving pieces, both running on the same live feed as the charts above. At the counter, silver coins, flatware and bullion are weighed and priced from that identical number, in front of you.
Today's silver price is on this page. Coins, flatware or bars: watch them weighed, watch the live number do the math, get paid the same day.
Find your nearest of our 8 storesSilver price history FAQs
What happened to the silver price in 1980?
The Hunt brothers of Texas bought up enormous silver positions attempting to corner the market, and the price went vertical to a then-record peak in January 1980 before exchange rule changes broke the corner and the price collapsed. It remains the textbook case of a squeeze, and of how fast a spike can unwind.
When was silver at its highest price?
The two famous peaks are January 1980, the Hunt brothers squeeze, and April 2011, when silver approached that old record during the post-financial-crisis metals run. Where today sits relative to recent history is exactly what the live 90-day chart above shows, and it can never go stale.
Why does silver swing harder than gold?
Because roughly half of silver demand is industrial, so its price answers to factory orders and the economy as well as to the fear trade that drives gold. A smaller market with two demand engines swings wider both ways, which is why silver sellers feel timing more than gold sellers do.
Does silver price history change what my silver is worth today?
No. Every honest offer is weight times purity times the live price at the moment you sell, minus a stated margin. The history above is context for deciding when, never part of the formula, and the number you are paid on is the same live one this page displays.