If The US Were To Outlaw Silver Again Where Would The Cutoff

I've seen some accounting done on world supplies of silver which count silver coins minted and in circulation as available supply. I'm pretty sure the reason China encourages gold and silver ownership is because they consider it as supply.

I know there are a lot of maybees and doomsday possibilites that just may not happen.

My main question is IF silver were outlawed and we could expect classic coins to be exempt (as gold was when it was outlawed)where do you think the cutoff between classic silver coins and moderns would be?

I'm sure people would be able to keep electronics which use trace ammounts of silver. After all electronics would in part be what the recovered silver would be needed for.

Its really impossible to play the what if game. The line would be whatever they said it was if it came down to that.

IF silver really did dry up and they decided they wanted it there probably wouldnt even be a line and they would just take all of it they could find.

But since theres not a shortage theres really no worry. Hypotheticals are fun and I enjoy them as much as the next guy but ones like these just cant be predicted with anything more than a guess. Theres no precedent and when things are being taken forcefully from people the line is either drawn at armed resistance or whenever the taker says theyve got enough

Executive Order 6102 is an Executive Order signed on April 5, 1933, by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt "forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates within the continental United States". The order criminalized the possession of monetary gold by any individual, partnership, association or corporation.

The order was rationalized on the grounds that hard times had caused "hoarding" of gold, stalling economic growth and making the depression worse. The New York Times, on April 6, 1933 p. 16, wrote under the headline "Hoarding of Gold", "The Executive Order issued by the President yesterday amplifies and particularizes his earlier warnings against hoarding. On March 6, taking advantage of a wartime statute that had not been repealed, he issued Presidential Proclamation 2039 that forbade the hoarding 'of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency,' under penalty of $10,000 and/or up to five to ten years imprisonment."


Executive Order 6102 required all persons to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, all but a small amount of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve, in exchange for $20.67 (equivalent to $371.10 today) per troy ounce. Under the Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917, as amended by the recently passed Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933, violation of the order was punishable by fine up to $10,000 (equivalent to $180 thousand today) or up to ten years in prison, or both. Most citizens who owned large amounts of gold had it transferred to countries such as Switzerland.[citation needed]

Order 6102 specifically exempted "customary use in industry, profession or art"- "a provision that covered artists, jewellers, dentists, and sign makers among others. The order further permitted any person to own up to $100 in gold coins (a face value equivalent to 5 troy ounces (160 g) of Gold valued at about $7800 as of 2011). The same paragraph also exempted "gold coins having recognized special value to collectors of rare and unusual coins." This protected recognized gold coin collections from legal seizure and likely melting.

The price of gold from the Treasury for international transactions was thereafter raised to $35 an ounce ($587 in 2010 dollars) resulting in an immediate loss for everyone who had been forced to surrender their gold. The resulting profit that the government realized funded the Exchange Stabilization Fund established by the Gold Reserve Act in 1934.

The regulations prescribed within Executive Order 6102 were modified by Executive Order 6111 of April 20, 1933, both of which were ultimately revoked and superseded by Executive Orders 6260 and 6261 of August 28 and 29, 1933, respectively.[4]

Executive 6102 also led to the ultra-rarity of the 1933 Double Eagle gold coin. The order caused all gold coin production to cease and all 1933 minted coins to be destroyed. About 20 illegal coins were stolen, leading to a standing United States Secret Service warrant for arrest and confiscation of the coin. A legalized coin sold for over 7.5 million dollars, making it the most valuable coin in the world, almost double its nearest competition.

As I see things, not silver, nor any other element will become extinct in the coming century.

with superdave, that the answer is recycling.
As silver price rises, more of the silver will be recycled, and more research will be made regarding silver alternatives for some of it's main uses.

I don't believe for a moment that silver is rarer than gold, or that it will ever be.
The available amount of silver might be less than gold's, but given the right price (which I believe is not that far from where we are today), you'll see people scraping all of their silverware etc.

The end game, as I see it, is a price rise to a point where humanity will have to recycle almost all of the used silver, but we have a long way to go (if I had to guess, it's closer to a century than to a decade).

First step will be scraping of old, unusable high grade silver (sterling silverware, jewelry, etc.).
Today, the POS doesn't make people scrape their silverware, but it will one day.

I don't buy any of the following claims:

- Silver will become extinct.
- Silver will out-price gold. (face it, it is just much more common).
- Silver will be rarer than gold.
- Silver has to hit his inflation adjusted 80s-high, ever. (not saying that it necessarily won't, but if it ever does, I'll be surprised).
- Silver will serve as money again anytime is the coming decades.
- You'll get rich by holding silver. You might preserve your wealth. You might make some (real) inflation adjusted gains, but you'll never become rich because of it.


Despite everything said here. I do hold a significant portion of my portfolio in precious metals (mostly silver), and do believe that in the current negative real interest economic system, this is the optimal way to preserve wealth.

Silver is NOT disappearing. What IS disappearing is CHEAP silver. 3/4 of the land on Earth is under water. Almost none of that has been mined for silver or gold. When the value of these elements becomes high enough, it is likely that robotic mining machines will go where it is and get it. That will be considerably more expensive than the typical mining process, however.

After that, we head to the moon and mine it. It likely has the same elements that the Earth does. If so, then there could be a lot of gold and silver there. Unlike the Earth, the moon is ALL dry land, so no problem with being under water there.

After that come the asteroids and mining them. If we have not created a valid star-drive by then, we deserve to remain here on a completely consumed Earth.

My hunch is that we will find a way to travel to the stars and beyond. It wasn't THAT long ago when many people were claiming that no one could possibly exceed the speed of sound. They were wrong about that and it is likely that those who say we will never exceed the speed of light will be wrong as well. It may be possible to achieve speeds that technically are not faster than light but that result in the same effective travel. Think warp drives or wormholes here.

Speculation, people creating fear to sell more, and then shortages from the mint which is nothing more then just that run selling out.

Even if someone wants to argue mines cant produce forever, that doesn't account for the fact that mining technology has greatly improved to get higher yeilds, detection has improved to find new sources, and that theres still quite a bit we know about and just havent gotten around to mining yet.

Plus any shortage would be short lived. If a shortage caused the price to spike significantly then all of a sudden a lot of silver becomes economically viable to go get

No (naturally occuring) element will ever go extinct in the wild. Theres too much of it all. (even helium which is basically extinct already will never run out completely due to radioactive decay)

What may happen (but not for a long time for something so common as silver) is rarity may increase resulting in low grade ores being refined. Thus, price goes up.

Whoever says it will all be gone in 7 years is a bit silly - we'd have to find it ALL in 7 years and mine it.

And under the sea is a bad place to go due to sediment and the crust being thin (im sure there are great places to go, but its all coated with sediment and under a lot of water). Haber wanted to take gold from sea water and could - he just oculdnt make it commercially viable - gold isn't the only thing in the sea.