About Us
SilverSaloon -The World of Silver
SilverSaloon provides information on public companies and people who are involved, world wide, in finding, mining, refining and reporting on silver and its wide variety of applications.
Under Stock Talk, Silver Gurus are encouraged to post their commentary. Silver mining and exploration companies may post press releases on the site.
A feature of Stock Talk is The Saloon where registered members can go online to post and discuss items related to silver and companies. It serves as a meeting place for silver aficionados of silver items including monetary and collectible items. Participants have to be properly registered.
SilverSaloon incorporates linkage to the SilverHallofFame.com, an associated site. Both sites are owned and operated by Argentum Saloon Inc., a B.C. Canada company.
SilverSaloon encourages participation from all sectors of the silver industry. Please use the contact form for enquiries about participation.
Why the SilverSaloon?
We humans have had an infatuation with silver for more than five millennia. It began when it was first mined around 3,000 BCE in Anatolia, which is now part of modern day Turkey. For well over 5,000 years, it has served the world for an enormous number of purposes.
Inquisitive experimenters in Anatolia, learned to roast the ore in a cupel, a shallow porous container in which noble metals could be refined by melting them with a blast of hot air in a special furnace which oxidizes lead and other base metals. Cupellation, is still used today.
Its aesthetic appeal in ancient cultures created its use for jewellery, tableware, figurines, and ritual objects. Rough-cut pieces were called hacksilver and were used in trade as a predecessor of silver currency.
The Mesopotamian shekel – the first known form of silver currency – emerged nearly 5,000 years ago. In Asia Minor, the elites of Lydia and Ionia, iron Age kingdoms of western Asia Minor, used stamped silver and gold coins to pay armies. And, ancient silver trade replaced the barter system.
The historical steady increase in the uses of silver did create supply problems. However, the dwindling supply sources of silver took a dramatic change when Christopher Columbus, looking for new routes to sail to Asia, discovered the New World.
Bolivia, Peru and Mexico went on to produce over 85 percent of world silver production. These increases were spurred by discoveries in Australia, Central America, Europe, Canada, the United States, Africa, Mexico, Chile, Japan, and elsewhere.
Silver is most often integrated with other metals. Advances in mining techniques enhanced the ability to separate it from these ores and made it possible to handle larger volumes of material.
Today, silver maintains its ranking as a very special fundamental metal. As the world evolves into a wide variety of new directions, silver continues as a major component of many of these developments.
Jewellery, silverware, coins, mirrors, photography, dental alloys, solder and brazing, medical, solar technology, batteries, ball bearings, autos, electronics, nano silver, super conductors and awards and awards and awards on and on, and on - so goes the world of silver.
Will the world run out of silver?
Should we maybe assume that the increasing number of high profile people exploring outer space may be thinking of space mining? That is a ton of money for a few minutes ride - so what is the real objective?
Researchers studying outer space claim that silver production occurs in less massive stars than gold through a type of fusion called the weak r-process.
SilverSaloon followers are invited to open a discussion in Stock Talk. ….let me know….jmartin@silverhalloffame.com
Last Updated on: 2023-09-12