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Peace Dollar Value - Value by Date, Mint Mark, and Grade - 1921 High Relief, 1928-P, and 1934-S Key Dates and What Dealers Pay - Money Metals

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 00:00:00 EST

Typically, Peace dollars trade for their melt value. The coins contain 0.77344 troy ounces of 90% pure silver, which gives it exposure to the silver spot price. Its melt value rises and falls with the silver market.

However, a short list of dates is worth much more than the melt value. The 1921 High Relief, the 1928 Philadelphia, and a handful of others carry genuine collector premiums. Everything else comes down to condition, and condition is where most people overestimate what they own.

This guide will help you place your coin in the right category. It also covers what a dealer will actually pay you for it, which is a different number from the retail figure a price guide publishes.

Peace Dollar Value Chart by Date and Mint Mark

The U.S. Mint produced 24 Peace dollar issues between 1921 and 1935. The table below lists every one of them alongside its mintage and an approximate https://www.pcgs.com/prices/detail/peace-dollar/26/most-active";>value range by guide.

Look closely at the final column. It tells you whether your coin trades on its silver content or on collector demand. The majority of these coins trade on their silver value.

Date	Mintage	Good-VF	XF-AU	MS-63	MS-65	Melt or Numismatic?
1921 High Relief	1,006,473	200-353	416-508	1,050-1,350	4,000-5,250	Key date
1922-P	51,737,000	65-83	86-90	100-105	175-250	Silver-driven
1922-D	15,063,000	65-85	89-94	150-175	575-1,100	Silver-driven
1922-S	17,475,000	65-85	89-94	130-175	1,450-7,000	Silver-driven
1923-P	30,800,000	65-83	86-90	100-105	175-250	Silver-driven
1923-D	6,811,000	65-83	90-96	260-315	1,100-1,650	Silver-driven
1923-S	19,020,000	65-83	90-96	125-190	2,850-10,000	Silver-driven
1924-P	11,811,000	65-83	86-90	100-105	225-285	Silver-driven
1924-S	1,728,000	79-100	105-132	725-775	7,200-11,000	Modest premium
1925-P	10,198,000	65-83	86-90	100-105	175-240	Silver-driven
1925-S	1,610,000	70-90	101-113	425-460	31,500-140,000	Modest premium
1926-P	1,939,000	67-86	90-100	150-180	525-750	Modest premium
1926-D	2,348,700	67-86	93-113	450-485	1,200-1,900	Modest premium
1926-S	6,980,000	67-86	90-96	225-240	950-2,100	Silver-driven
1927-P	848,000	79-100	109-127	325-375	2,000-4,500	Semi-key
1927-D	1,268,900	78-98	121-163	850-925	4,000-9,500	Semi-key
1927-S	866,000	78-98	121-163	850-950	6,000-27,500	Semi-key
1928-P	360,649	289-385	416-478	900-1,000	4,250-8,750	Key date
1928-S	1,632,000	78-96	113-152	650-750	18,500-70,000	Modest premium
1934-P	954,057	78-96	101-121	300-360	900-1,350	Semi-key
1934-D	1,569,500	78-96	109-132	400-450	2,000-3,500	Modest premium
1934-S	1,011,000	109-127	188-538	7,500-8,150	11,500-17,500	Key in mint state
1935-P	1,576,000	78-96	101-127	275-300	900-1,100	Modest premium
1935-S	1,964,000	79-100	121-163	650-700	1,800-2,500	Semi-key

Peace Dollar Specifications and Silver Content

Every Peace dollar struck between 1921 and 1935 shares the same specifications:

Silver content: 0.77344 troy ounces of pure silver
Total weight: 26.73 grams
Fineness: .900 fine, meaning 90% silver and 10% copper
Diameter: 38.1 mm
Designer: Anthony de Francisci
Years produced: 1921 through 1928, and 1934 through 1935

A quick note about the Peace dollar. The U.S. Mint revived the Peace dollar design in 2021, but that modern coin is completely different from its original predecessor. This coin contains 0.858 troy ounces of .999 fine silver. The valuations on this page do not apply to it.

How Much Silver Is in a Peace Dollar, and What That Silver Is Worth Today

You can find the melt value of a Peace dollar with this simple mathematical formula:

0.77344 × silver spot price = melt value

For example, let’s say the spot price of silver was $65. If you plug that number into the formula above, you would find the melt value of a Peace dollar is roughly $50.

That figure establishes the floor. The result gives you the coin’s theoretical silver value. Actual dealer bids can differ because of spreads, market conditions, and the condition of the coin.

When a Peace Dollar Stops Being a Collector Coin

Common-date Peace dollars live in two different markets, and the silver price decides which market they belong to on any given day.

When silver prices decline, a 1925 Peace dollar trades as a collector coin and buyers pay a premium for the date and the appearance. When silver is expensive, that same coin trades as bullion. The metal inside it is then worth more than a collector will pay for the date.

This is why a coin passed through a family collection may now sell as metal, not a numismatic piece. Nothing about the coin changed. What did change was the silver value.

Most circulated Peace dollars sit firmly in the bullion market today. That is why dealers quote them as a percentage of melt rather than pricing them date by date.

Peace Dollar Melt Value Calculator

Our https://www.moneymetals.com/silver-price";>silver melt value calculator prices your coins at the current spot price. Enter how many Peace dollars you hold and it handles the arithmetic.

Which Peace Dollars Are Actually Worth Real Money

A small group of dates carries value well beyond their silver content. These are the ones worth checking for.

1921 High Relief

The first Peace dollar is the only genuine design variety in the series, and the Philadelphia Mint produced 1,006,473 of them in late 1921.

The design sits noticeably higher off the surface than later issues. Its sculptor, Anthony de Francisci wanted depth and detail. The Mint found the coins hard to strike properly and lowered the relief for 1922.

How to identify one: start with the date, because only 1921 coins are High Relief. Liberty’s hair and cheek stand well above the surrounding field, and the date sits lower on the coin than it does on later issues. Many 1921 examples show weak detail in the hair above the ear, since the dies struggled to fill that area completely.

This is the most valuable Peace dollar that most people will ever hold. Even heavily worn examples bring several times their melt value.

1928 Philadelphia

Only 360,649 were struck. That is the lowest business-strike mintage in the entire series.

There is a complication that other guides tend to skip, though. The Mint announced the limited production in advance, so collectors and dealers deliberately saved rolls of them.

The result is that the 1928-P is genuinely scarce in worn grades but appears more often in mint state than its tiny mintage would suggest.

The lesson applies across the series: mintage alone does not determine value, because survival rate matters just as much.

1934-S

The 1934-S is straightforward to find in circulated grades and quite difficult to find in MS-65, because very few were preserved.

This coin is the clearest demonstration that grade matters more than date. A worn 1934-S brings a small premium over melt, while a gem example brings thousands of dollars.

If you own a 1934-S that seems bright and unworn, get it certified. This is one of the few dates where the grading fee reliably pays for itself.

1927-D, 1927-S, 1935-S, and the Other Semi-Keys

These dates all had mintages below two million. They bring modest premiums in circulated grades and much stronger premiums in mint state.

Stay on the lookout for the 1927-P, 1927-D, 1927-S, 1934-P, and 1935-S. None of these will make you wealthy in worn condition. Nevertheless, all of them are worth significantly more than the coin’s melt value.

The 1964-D Peace Dollar: The One You Cannot Own

The Denver Mint struck 316,076 Peace dollars dated 1964. Not a single one ever reached the public.

The Treasury reversed its decision and ordered the entire production melted. The Mint reclassified them as trial strikes, and every coin was destroyed under heavy security.

No verified example is known to exist today. Owning one would not be legal, because the Mint never officially issued them. PCGS has maintained a six-figure standing reward for a genuine specimen, and nobody has ever claimed it.

Why Your 1922 Peace Dollar Probably Isn't Rare

People often search this coin online in the hopes of confirming that their coin is a rare and valuable coin. Unfortunately, in many cases, the coin is not likely to be a rare treasure.

Philadelphia struck 51,737,000 Peace dollars in 1922. It is the highest mintage in the series by an enormous margin. When you add in the Denver and San Francisco production numbers, the 1922 total climbs above 84 million coins.

A circulated 1922 Peace dollar is worth its silver content with a modest premium attached. That holds true for the Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco issues alike.

What would actually make a 1922 valuable:

A grade of MS-65 or better, which is scarce for this date
A 1922 High Relief, https://www.moneymetals.com/2023-s-proof-peace-silver-dollar-858-asw/3214";>struck as a proof or pattern, of which very few examples survive
A confirmed die variety, verified by a professional grading service

Everything that does not meet these criteria is a common coin. That is not bad news. A common Peace dollar still holds real silver, which is the primary reason most people buy this coin.

Where Is the Mint Mark on a Peace Dollar?

Turn the coin over and look at the lower left of the reverse. Mint marks appear just below the word ONE and above the eagle’s wing.

D indicates Denver
S indicates San Francisco
No mark indicates Philadelphia

The mark is small enough that you should use a loupe or the zoom function on your phone’s camera.

Is a Peace Dollar With No Mint Mark Rare?

A Peace dollar without a mint mark is most likely not rare. Unless it is a coin whose mint mark has been worn away, no mint mark indicates the coin came from Philadelphia. The Philadelphia mint produced more Peace dollars than the Denver and San Francisco mints combined.

A missing mint mark simply means your coin came from Philadelphia. It is not an error and it does not add value.

The single exception is 1921. Every 1921 Peace dollar came from Philadelphia, and every one of these coins is High Relief. A blank mint mark position is normal on that date, and the coin still commands a strong premium.

1923, 1924, 1925, and 1926 Values

These four years are the workhouse dates of the series. The Mint produced tens of millions of them.

1923-P is the second most common Peace dollar at 30,800,000 struck, so expect melt plus a small premium in circulated grades.
1924-P and 1925-P are both common. Their San Francisco counterparts had mintages below two million and bring much more.
1926 coins from all three mints had lower mintages than the early 1920s issues and bring modest premiums as a result.

Condition drives the price across all four years. A gem example of any of these dates is worth many times what a circulated one brings.

"IN GOD WE TRVST" - Is My Peace Dollar a Misspelling Error?

Look closely at your coin and you will see the motto reads IN GOD WE TRVST.

That V is not an error. Every Peace dollar reads this way. The phrase shows up across all 24 issues, all three mints, and all fifteen years of production.

The V is Latin. Classical Roman inscriptions used V for the U sound. That was because the original Roman alphabet did not contain a separate letter U.

The Peace dollar was designed in a neoclassical, Greco-Roman style. Because of that, Anthony de Francisci chose this spelling to match the style.

Does the V add any value? No. Since all Peace dollars carry it, it does not make any individual coins more scarce.

We understand that is not the answer most people are hoping for. However, the good news is that the coin still contains a little more than three quarters of a troy ounce of silver. It is worth roughly 77% of the current silver spot price, and its date, mint mark, and grade may add more on top of that. Check the chart above to see where yours lands.

Peace Dollar Errors and Varieties Worth Checking For

Genuine varieties of this series do exist. Collectors have made a meticulous catalog of them through the VAM system. The system gets its name from the researchers Leroy Van Allen and George Mallis. VAM numbers identify small differences between individual dies.

A few Peace dollar varieties command strong premiums:

Doubled dies, where the design shows a distinct second image
The 1922 "extra hair" type varieties
Substantial die breaks and cracks, which collectors call die gouges
Off-center strikes and clipped planchets

Here is the part most pages leave out entirely. The overwhelming majority of “errors” that people discover are not errors at all.

Scratches, dents, and gouges from decades in a cash drawer are simply damage. Grainy or mushy detail comes from worn dies, which are not necessarily uncommon. The Mint often continued using dies until they failed completely. Neither factor adds any value, but both can reduce it.

If you think you found a genuine variety, compare your coin against photos in a VAM reference before you pay for certification.

Has My Coin Been Cleaned?

Cleaning is the most common problem found on inherited Peace dollars. People often clean their coins in the hope of making that historic item shine. The problem is that this practice depletes the numismatic value significantly.

Signs that a coin has been cleaned:

Fine parallel scratches, called hairlines, running across the open fields
An unnatural bright white or pinkish tone
Shine in the recessed areas, where an original coin remains dark
No toning whatsoever on a coin that clearly saw heavy circulation

A cleaned Peace dollar can lose 20% to 50% of its value. Grading services will often refuse to assign a numerical grade and return the coin labeled “cleaned” or “details” instead.

If your coins look dull or dark, that is not a problem. It does not need to be cleaned. Toning is normal and experienced buyers expect it, so never polish, scrub, or dip a silver dollar.

How to Grade a Peace Dollar Yourself

You do not need professional training for this. You only need to know where to look.

Peace dollars show wear first on the high points of the design, so check these four locations:

Liberty's hair above the ear. On a circulated coin the individual strands blur together into one mass.
Liberty's cheek. Flatness and small contact marks appear here before anywhere else.
The eagle's back feathers. Look for distinct feather lines rather than a smooth patch.
The eagle's wing edge. Sharp on an uncirculated coin and rounded on a worn one.

For pricing purposes, three tiers matter:

Circulated (Good through Very Fine). Obvious wear on the hair and cheek, and most surviving coins fall into this range.
About Uncirculated. Light wear on the high points only, with the original luster still largely intact.
Mint State (MS-60 and above). No wear at all, though bag marks from Mint handling are normal and expected.

Within mint state, the jump from MS-63 to MS-65 affects the price more than the date does on most coins. That gap depends on luster, strike quality, and how few contact marks the coin carries.

Is It Worth Paying to Have Your Peace Dollar Graded?

This decision is straightforward arithmetic, and almost nobody runs the numbers for you.

The Costs of Coin Grading

Grading service fee at the economy tier
Annual membership, where the service requires one
Insured shipping to the grading service
Insured return shipping
All-in cost per coin

The break-even rule: Run the numbers to find what your coin is worth, and compare it with the costs of coin grading. For most coins, certification costs more than it adds. Submit the coin and you lose money.

Coins that usually clear the threshold:

A 1921 High Relief in any grade above Fine
A 1928-P in essentially any grade
Any Peace dollar you believe grades MS-64 or better
A 1934-S showing no wear
A confirmed die variety

Coins that do not clear it:

Circulated common dates from 1922 through 1926
Any coin that shows evidence of cleaning
Culls, holed coins, and heavily damaged pieces

If you have forty common Peace dollars sitting in a coffee can, do not send them for grading. Sell them as silver instead.

What a Dealer Will Actually Pay for Your Peace Dollars

Here is the gap that nobody bothers to explain. A price guide is not an offer.

PCGS and NGC publish retail values. Those values represent what a collector might pay a dealer. Likewise, Greysheet publishes wholesale sheet prices. That sits closer to a dealer-to-dealer figure.

All of these figures can give you a helpful reference point when you consider selling or buying a coin. However, none of these is the same thing as a bid on the coins in your hand.

When you sell, you receive the bid. The bid always sits below the ask.

Why the spread exists. Every coin that arrives gets weighed, authenticated, and sorted by date and grade, and that represents real labor. We carry the inventory and absorb the silver price risk until the coin sells. We ship the coins insured in both directions. Any dealer quoting you a bid at full retail will not be in business next year.

Culls and Damaged Peace Dollars

Price guides usually do not list culls. We do, because we buy and sell these coins every day.

A cull is a Peace dollar that has been drilled, bent, gouged, worn smooth, or cleaned beyond recovery. It carries no collector value at all.

And yet the coin contains silver. A cull retains its silver content just as much as any rare issue does. It trades close to its melt value, and it is one of the least expensive ways to own recognizable U.S. silver.

If your inherited coins are rough, that is perfectly fine, because rough coins still sell. See our https://www.moneymetals.com/cull-peace-silver-dollars/238";>cull Peace dollars page for current pricing on both sides of the trade.

Selling to a Coin Shop, an Online Dealer, or eBay

Each route costs you something different. We’ll offer a quick overview of your options here.

Local coin shop. You walk out with cash the same day and pay nothing for shipping. Spreads tend to run wider than online because the shop carries rent expenses and moves less volume. It’s usually best practice to compare at least two quotes before you commit.

Online dealer. Spreads are tighter and pricing is posted publicly online. That allows you more freedom to compare before you ship anything. You wait a few days for payment, and you handle the packing and insurance yourself. However, please note that most dealers cover shipping on larger lots.

eBay. The headline price looks best until the fees arrive. Final value fees plus payment processing will consume a portion of the sale. On top of that, you add in shipping and insurance fees. There is also the risk of a chargeback or a return.

Run the math before assuming eBay is the best bet. Common Peace dollar lots can get devoured by eBay fees.

Peace Dollars as an Investment or as a Collection

People usually have two distinct reasons for buying Peace dollars. Both of these are valid options, but they lead to different buying decisions.

For silver stackers. Peace dollars are 90% silver. Moreover, they are easy to recognize and hard to counterfeit well. They are divisible in a way that a 100-ounce bar simply is not. If you are a silver stacker, you can buy these coins in circulated common conditions and culls for the lowest premium over melt. There’s no need to pay attention to the dates.

For collectors. A complete Peace dollar set runs 24 coins. That makes it one of the few classic U.S. silver series an ordinary person can finish. Buy the best grade you can afford, prioritize eye appeal, and have the key dates certified.

Do not mix the two objectives in a single purchase. Paying a collector premium for a coin you intend to sell as silver is how people lose money in this market.

Are Peace Dollars IRA-Eligible?

No. Peace dollars cannot be held inside a https://www.moneymetals.com/programs/iras";>precious metals IRA.

IRS rules establish a minimum fineness for silver held in a retirement account, and Peace dollars are .900 fine. That falls below the .999 standard.

If you want silver in a retirement account, the best path forward is looking at IRA-approved products such as https://www.moneymetals.com/buy/silver/coins/american-silver-eagle";>American Silver Eagles and .999 fine bars and rounds. Our precious metals IRA page lists everything that qualifies.

Peace dollars remain perfectly sensible to own outside a retirement account, and many of our customers hold both.

Taxes When You Sell

The IRS treats physical silver as a collectible, and that classification matters more than most sellers expect.

Long-term gains on collectibles face a maximum federal rate of 28%, while stocks held for the same period top out at 20%. Short-term gains follow your ordinary income rate.

Your cost basis is whatever you paid, including the premium over spot, so keep your receipts. Inherited coins generally receive a stepped-up basis as of the date of death, which can reduce the tax owed to almost nothing.

Dealers must file Form 1099-B on certain sales that meet IRS thresholds for specific products and amounts. Ask about that reporting before you sell if this concerns you.

This is general information and not tax advice. Consult a tax professional about your particular situation.

How to Spot a Counterfeit Peace Dollar

Counterfeit Peace dollars are common, and most of them come from overseas and target buyers who never check the fundamentals. Three simple tests catch nearly all of them.

Weigh it. A genuine Peace dollar weighs 26.73 grams. Counterfeits usually come in light, because the base metals substituted for silver weigh less. An inexpensive kitchen scale that reads to a tenth of a gram is the most useful tool you can own.

Measure it. The diameter is 38.1 mm, and counterfeits frequently miss by at least a millimeter.

Test it with a magnet. Silver is not magnetic, so if a magnet grabs the coin or drags across its surface, walk away. This catches counterfeits built around an iron or steel core.

However, it is worth noting that not all counterfeit metals used for silver coins are magnetic, either. The magnetic test can rule out coins that are attracted, but does not necessarily validate coins that are not attracted.

Should You Buy Raw or Certified?

Buy raw when your goal is silver. You are paying for metal, and a plastic holder adds cost without adding a single ounce.

Buy certified when you want a key date, a coin grading above MS-63, or anything you intend to resell to a collector. The holder settles the grading question and confirms the coin is authentic.

For a stacker, circulated common dates from a dealer you trust represent the better value. For a collector chasing a 1921 High Relief or a gem 1934-S, certification is not optional.

Additional red flags:

Soft, mushy detail in the eagle's feathers
Incorrect letter shapes in TRVST or LIBERTY
A dull thud when you balance the coin and tap it, instead of a long clear tone
A visible seam around the edge
A price well below melt value, which no honest seller would offer

If a coin passes the weight and diameter tests but still looks wrong to you, send it for authentication. Verifying a coin costs far less than buying a bad one.

Frequently Asked Questions

The 1921 High Relief is the most valuable date that most people will ever encounter. In top grades, gem examples of the 1934-S and 1928-P can bring more. The 1964-D would be worth a fortune, except that none exist and owning one would not be legal.

Each Peace dollar contains 0.77344 troy ounces of pure silver. Multiply the current spot price by 0.77344 to calculate it yourself at any time.

No. Peace dollars are .900 fine, which means 90% silver and 10% copper, and the copper adds enough hardness for the coin to survive circulation. Total weight is 26.73 grams, of which 0.77344 troy ounces is pure silver.

The Denver Mint struck 15,063,000 Peace dollars in 1922, so the date is common. A circulated 1922-D is worth close to melt plus a small premium, while mint state examples bring more and gem grades bring considerably more.

Check the grade first, because a 1922 with no wear and strong luster is worth a closer look. Then compare it against a VAM reference for die varieties. Most 1922 coins are common in any circulated grade, whatever the mint mark.

It came from Philadelphia, which struck 51,737,000 that year, the highest mintage in the series. A circulated example is worth close to its silver content.

Only 1921 coins are High Relief. The design stands well above the field, Liberty's hair shows deep separation between the strands, and the date sits low on the coin. If your coin is dated 1922 or later, it is not a High Relief.

They are a straightforward way to own recognizable U.S. silver. Common dates track the silver price, so your return follows silver, while key dates add both collector risk and collector upside. Neither approach substitutes for a plan.

Both contain the identical 0.77344 troy ounces of silver, so melt value is the same. Morgan dollars are older, scarcer in their key dates, and more popular with collectors, so Morgans usually bring more above melt.

The Bond Bloodbath Spreads

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 00:00:00 EST

The factors driving yields higher are extremely bullish for gold, silver, and every metal and commodity.

While the trading algos in charge of pricing assets on a daily basis care about nothing outside of central bank policy, these drivers guarantee much higher prices for commodities over the long term.

Another day, another https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2026/09/14/bond-vigilantes-smell-blood-in-the-water-005202";>step higher in bond yields.

And I’m not talking about just https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2026/09/24/treasury-announces-second-oversized-bond-buyback-as-it-tries-to-put-a-lid-on-yields-005234";>U.S. Treasurys — the rise in bond yields has not only been relentless but also boundless. Yields have been climbing for virtually every sovereign bond around the globe.

https://www.moneymetals.com/uploads/content/10-Year-U.S.-Treasury-Yield.png"; width="800" height="500" class="mx-auto p-3" alt="10-Year U.S. Treasury Yield" />

10-Year U.S. Treasury Yield

The pundits will tell you that investors are scared of the inflationary pressures built up from higher energy prices and the AI spending boom. And yes, that has something to do with what we’re seeing right now in the markets.

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But the primary driving force behind falling bond values is best described not by “inflation” but “depreciation.”

And the factors that demand an accelerated depreciation in currencies are as old as human nature and as unavoidable.

“Nothing Stops This Train”

My friend Lyn Alden is famous for, among many other things, popularizing the quote above.

Lyn's referencing the inevitable debt spiral that’s in play at the moment, after decades of ever-easier money and ever-greater debt accumulation.

This process is inevitable and irreversible, as thousands of years of human history clearly show.

Every civilization has eventually overspent its means and ended its currency through depreciation to vaporize those debts. And thus, every currency has eventually been depreciated to zero.

My friend Frank Giustra (who’s speaking this year in https://neworleansconference.com/bl"; target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://enews.jeffersoncompanies.com/q/AZBw5uMZRmInQW-E0X2bLKy_tfxMt3XPUtAFZcOJU1RFRkFOLkdMRUFTT05AaW5kZXBlbmRlbnRsaXZpbmdidWxsaW9uLmNvbcOIIYG2UdTEdoU8RCN9HtaowSCAtA&;amp;source=gmail&ust=1790700164919000&usg=AOvVaw1tLNdlZMdcvcxtB2RoRKgX" rel="noopener">New Orleans) recently posted that governments will choose to massively print currency to address today’s unmanageable debt burdens.

My reply was that this wasn’t necessarily a choice: “...To be fair to those before us, that path wasn’t so much chosen as forced. In other words, once you get to this point…there is no choice.”

In other words, the destruction of fiat currencies isn’t a policy, but rather an unavoidable outcome.

And on a day when gold and silver are being driven lower by short-term algo traders focused on central bank policy decisions and month-end expiries of futures contracts, we need to remember that the train driving currencies lower and metals higher over the long term will not be stopped.

As I also https://x.com/Brien_Lundin/status/2104553102062039295?s=20"; target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted this morning:

https://x.com/Brien_Lundin/status/2104553102062039295?s=20"; target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.moneymetals.com/uploads/content/X-Brien_Lundin-September-28-2026.png"; width="800" height="275" class="mx-auto p-3" alt="" />As I was talking to so many of my friends and colleagues at the elite Beaver Creek mining conference last week, I sensed no panic — and not even the slightest concern — over the bond-market turmoil that even Bloomberg had dubbed a “bloodbath.”

Even though metals prices were slipping along with bond prices, reversing the trend of recent weeks, these investors continued to have confidence in the longer-term drivers I’ve described above.

In fact, this downturn has made a mining stock market that was already flush with opportunities even more attractive.

To get Brien Lundin’s ongoing commentary on the markets at no charge, https://goldnewsletter.com/golden-opportunities-sign-up/?tblci=GiBdY-MYH1-nD-WW6UXCXAtHBPIEdPpDc50r48qPeOICrCDKuWUow8jry8SFw-EvMLzYPQ"; target="_blank" rel="noopener">click here to subscribe to his free Golden Opportunities newsletter.

Gold & Silver Just Got Slammed... But Something Doesn't Add Up

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 00:00:00 EST

Gold and silver investors woke up to another ugly morning.

Gold fell below $4,200 an ounce in early trading, down nearly 3% at one point, while silver was hit even harder – plunging roughly 5% and briefly breaking down to $61 an ounce.

The latest selloff follows an already difficult week, with gold losing roughly 2% last week to finish near $4,285 while silver ended around $64.30.

The main culprit isn't difficult to identify: interest rates.

The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury surged above 5% last week, reaching levels not seen since 2007. Higher yields have been accompanied by a stronger Federal Reserve note, creating a nasty one-two punch for precious metals.

And this is where things get strange.

The Middle East remains a powder keg. Oil prices are surging. Inflation remains stubbornly high. And investors are confronting a federal government buried under a mountain of debt.

Those don't exactly sound like bearish fundamentals for gold. Yet traders are selling gold and silver because these problems may force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates even further.

Oil jumped again this morning after President Trump rejected Iran's latest proposal for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Brent crude surged above $107 per barrel and approached $108 at one point.

And despite all the talk about potentially reopening Hormuz, actual shipping traffic through this critical waterway remains a fraction of normal levels.

Some reports show only 132 vessels transited the strait during the entire week ended September 27. Before the war, roughly 130 vessels passed through each day.

Higher energy costs ripple through virtually everything else in the economy, which means the Fed's inflation problem isn't going away.

The central bankers already raised their benchmark interest rate by a quarter point earlier this month. Now traders are assigning a substantial probability to yet another hike in October, while several Fed officials have been busy warning that additional tightening may be necessary.

So gold finds itself in a bizarre position. War is bad for gold because it pushes oil higher. Higher oil is bad for gold because it pushes inflation higher. And higher inflation is bad for gold because the Fed responds by raising interest rates.

At least that's how Wall Street's current logic goes.

But investors shouldn't confuse the short-term trading narrative with the longer-term monetary picture. Consider what's happening in China.

The Chinese imported more than 1,000 metric tons of gold during the first eight months of 2026 – already more than the country imported during all of last year. Meanwhile, the People's Bank of China continues adding gold to its reserves, reporting another 20.2 metric tons in August – its largest monthly purchase in nearly three years.

And China isn't alone. Western investors have suddenly rediscovered gold as well. Global gold-backed exchange-traded funds attracted a whopping $18 billion in August, the second-largest monthly inflow on record. ETF holdings jumped by 121 metric tons to a record 4,189 tons.

In other words, underneath a nasty correction in the futures markets, investors around the world continue moving substantial amounts of capital into gold.

Why? Perhaps they're looking beyond the Fed's next meeting. The central bankers can push interest rates higher. They can talk tough about inflation. And Wall Street traders can dump gold futures whenever another supposedly "hawkish" Fed official steps in front of a microphone.

But none of that fixes Washington's fiscal mess. It doesn't shrink the federal debt. It doesn't eliminate trillion-dollar deficits.

It doesn't restore the purchasing power already lost by the Federal Reserve note. And it certainly doesn't resolve the geopolitical conflicts now threatening global energy supplies.

Silver is suffering even more than gold during the current correction – which isn't unusual. Silver tends to exaggerate moves in both directions.

The white metal broke through $63 and briefly traded down to $61 this morning, a decline of more than 5% at its worst levels. Gold, meanwhile, broke decisively below $4,200.

But the bigger picture hasn't changed. Governments are borrowing enormous sums. Central banks are accumulating gold. Investors are increasingly questioning paper assets and sovereign debt. And geopolitical tensions are putting additional strain on an already fragile monetary system.

Gold and silver don't move higher in a straight line. Sometimes the sharpest corrections occur while the fundamental reasons for owning them are actually getting stronger.

This may be one of those times.

Big Chinese Banks Ending Retail Leveraged Gold and Silver Futures Trading

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 00:00:00 EST

At least a dozen large Chinese banks plan to end leveraged precious metals futures contracts.

Specifically, banks are shutting down Shanghai Gold Exchange margin-traded deferred contracts, including Au(T+D) and Ag(T+D).

The move could potentially increase demand for physical metal in China, the world's largest gold market.

Beijing-based China Everbright Bank is the latest Chinese institution to announce an end to leveraged precious metals trading, targeting an exit sometime after Oct. 19.

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Earlier this month, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank made a similar announcement.

These banks join at least 10 other major Chinese lenders that have already exited or announced plans to leave the leveraged futures business, including ICBC, the country’s largest bank, along with Bank of China (BOC) and China Construction Bank.

Shanghai-based Orient Futures analyst Xu Ying called it “an inevitable shift” and predicted every major bank will eventually exit the business.

Sources at two banks told the South China Morning Post that the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) directed the move. The SGE is China’s primary platform for physical precious metal trading physical gold and silver.

Officials also appear to be phasing out unleveraged spot gold futures contracts for retail customers.

In practice, leveraged trades allow investors to borrow money to speculate on gold and silver futures. Chinese banks have allowed leveraged precious metals trading for more than two decades. The SGE general sets margin requirements, allowing retail customers to post as little as one-sixth of the contract value.

Of course, borrowing money to speculate on the price movement of gold and silver comes with a high level of risk. Xu told the South China Morning Post this makes leveraged trades “a poor fit for domestic retail clients,” adding that most have “limited trading know-how and tend to be risk averse.”

As precious metals volatility has increased, banks have progressively raised margin requirements. By the end of the first quarter, state-owned banks had raised them to 100 percent, effectively eliminating leverage.

The oil price collapse in April 2020 focused attention on leveraged trading. Many retail investors saw their entire portfolios wiped out by the “fiasco.” An unnamed source with Bank of China told the South China Morning Post that after the incident, regulators began “mulling a broader phase-out of retail commodity-linked trading products offered by domestic banks.”

“The fiasco itself was so disruptive that it prompted sweeping regulatory caution towards retail leverage instruments.”

The same source said mainland lenders will now be expected to offer “only physical gold and non-leveraged gold-accumulation plans – products that let investors buy small, regular amounts of gold over time without borrowed funds – for retail investment purposes.”

The move could shift some speculative paper trading into physical gold and silver.

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Based on SGE data, three major deferred gold and silver contracts generated roughly 12.6 trillion yuan ($1.9 trillion) in two-sided trading value in 2025. That covers the entire market for those contracts, not just retail trading. These figures also measure repeated trading, not just the amount of cash investors committed.

Public figures do not show how much money those customers might now have to redirect elsewhere. However, if these investors want to maintain exposure to gold and silver, they will need to pivot to physical metal, https://www.moneymetals.com/programs/monthly-program";>long-term accumulation plans, ETFs, or digital gold products.

Chinese banks seem to be directing customers to physical metal and bank-run accumulation plans, while ETFs are available through securities investment accounts.

India Gold Market Cautiously Optimistic With Approach of Festive and Wedding Seasons

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 00:00:00 EST

The Indian gold market is cautiously optimistic as we approach the festive gold-buying season.

Higher prices continue to weigh on gold jewelry demand even as they support investment purchases. Meanwhile, wedding buying appears “resilient,” according to the World Gold Council.

India ranks as the world’s second-largest gold market.

Gold prices surged in August before pulling back in the early weeks of September.

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Gold prices recorded one of their strongest monthly gains in nearly three decades in August. The London Gold Price PM rose 13 percent, ending August at $4,386 per ounce. That was slightly lower than the 14 percent gain recorded in January.

However, https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2026/09/17/hut-hut-hike-the-fed-raised-rates-now-what-005211";>the Fed’s September rate hike and another spike in oil prices created headwinds for gold in the first two weeks of September, causing a sharp price drop.

Gold was up 12 percent in rupee terms last month, closing August at ₹158,854 per 10 grams. The price fell 4.6 percent through the first two weeks of September.

According to the World Gold Council, gold continues to trade at around 2 percent below import parity. This indicates local supply is adequate compared to demand.

Discounts widened from an average of $34 per ounce in July to $51 in August. The discount widened further to $78 per ounce as of Sept. 11.

World Gold Council analysts said, “Market feedback suggests that the exchange of old gold for new jewelry has boosted local supply and helped keep domestic prices below the landed cost. The availability of unofficial supply is also cited as a contributing factor behind the widening discount.”

Demand for gold typically surges in India during the fall. The festive season begins in September, building into Navratri (Oct. 11), and peaking around Dhanteras (Nov. 6) and Diwali (Nov. 8). Buying typically continues into the winter wedding season.

There was strong demand in late August as the run-up to the festive season began but cooled in early September. According to the World Gold Council, volatility, with a sharp price rise in August followed by the September sell-off, left many Indian consumers in a “wait-and-see mode.”

“Retailers have also been cautious about inventory building, preferring to replenish based on realized demand, while some manufacturers have reported delays in uptake of orders by retailers. Wedding-related demand, however, has remained relatively resilient.”

World Gold Council analysts said large retailers have reported “comparatively stronger demand” and have stepped up new product launches, marketing initiatives, and promotional campaigns.

“Despite the recent moderation, the trade remains cautiously optimistic about demand during the peak festive and wedding season."

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Meanwhile, investment demand remains “steady,” although there appears to be a modest shift from physical to digital gold.

Inflows into Indian gold ETFs rose 67 percent month-on-month to ₹25.97 billion ($272 million) last month. Indian ETF gold holdings rose by 1.6 tonnes to 121.3 tonnes in August.

Gold inflows into Indian funds slowed from the exceptionally strong pace of Q1 but have remained positive on “a near-sustained basis” throughout the year. World Gold Council analysts said this underscores investor appetite for gold as a portfolio allocation.

About 4,000 new gold ETF accounts were added in August, increasing ETF folios to 12.54 million. The pace of account growth has slowed significantly from an average monthly increase of 330,000 from January to July. According to the WGC, this suggests that while existing investors continue to accumulate gold through ETFs, new investor entry has slowed.

ETFs are a convenient way for investors to play the gold market, but https://youtu.be/7aP6VbgXVeM?si=O3yPeFkTYFHOXrHe"; target="_blank" rel="noopener">owning ETF shares is not the same as holding physical gold.

Digital gold purchases held steady from June to August, averaging around ₹25 billion ($262 million) per month. Demand was significantly higher year-on-year, with August digital gold purchases rising by 110 percent.

Consumers can purchase digital gold online or through an app. The provider holds the physical gold in a vault. In many cases, investors can take possession of physical gold under the company's terms.

Indian gold imports fell by 45 percent in August. Volumes were estimated between 15 and 20 tonnes. According to the World Gold Council, “This fall in imports suggests that existing domestic supply remained sufficient to meet expected demand.”

Looking ahead, World Gold Council analysts said they expect demand to improve as we move into the festive and wedding season, “supported by steady investment demand and resilient wedding-related buying, though elevated prices and volatility may continue to constrain discretionary buying.”

Indians love gold for both cultural and economic reasons.

The yellow metal is deeply interwoven into India’s marriage ceremonies, as well as religious and cultural rituals. Festival seasons typically boost gold demand.

Indians also value the yellow metal as a store of wealth, especially in poorer rural regions. Around two-thirds of India’s gold demand comes from outside urban centers, where many people operate outside the tax system. Many Indians use gold jewelry not only as an adornment but to preserve wealth.

In the West, gold is generally viewed as a luxury item.

Not in India. Even poor Indians buy gold.

According to a 2018 ICE360 survey, half of India's households had purchased gold within the last five years. Overall, 87 percent of Indian households own some gold. Even households at the lowest income levels in India hold some of the yellow metal. According to the survey, more than 75 percent of families in the bottom 10 percent of income managed to https://www.moneymetals.com/buy/gold";>buy some gold.

The yellow metal serves as a lifeline for Indians buffeted by the economic storm caused by the government's response to COVID-19. After the Indian government locked down the country, banks tightened credit to mitigate the default risk. Unable to secure traditional loans, Indians used gold to secure financing. As Indians endured a second wave of lockdowns, many Indians resorted to selling gold outright to make ends meet.

Nomi Prins: Fed Rate Hike Doesn’t Change Gold’s Long-Term Outlook

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 EST

On a recent episode of Money Metals Weekly Market Wrap, the Money Metals podcast, host Mike Maharrey spoke with https://share.google/69t46a3PV8mH7vhdq"; target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nomi Prins about higher interest rates, rising oil prices, Treasury market strain, and accelerating government debt. Prins argued that these forces continue to reinforce the case for holding gold.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/CAk4Y3yVj4Q?si=AGXqzLM00TGaESyw"; title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen">

Don’t Sell Gold Because of a Fed Rate Hike

The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate by 25 basis points on Sept. 16, moving the federal funds target range to 3.75 percent to 4.00 percent. For many investors, a rate hike raises an immediate question about whether to sell gold.

Nomi Prins’ answer was emphatic. Speaking with Money Metals Weekly Market Wrap host Mike Maharrey, the author and international political economy analyst said the proper response is https://youtu.be/4CiNHA7LrEI?si=TROHd2ay_dmgHjmA";>not to sell gold, but to add more.

Prins said gold had reached all-time highs near $5,500 an ounce before the Iran war and later fell in two stages as the conflict began and the prospect of a quick resolution faded. Since then, she said gold has settled into a https://www.moneymetals.com/gold-price";>healthy range around $4,300 to $4,400.

That consolidation, in her view, reflects a market with durable underlying demand. Short-term volatility has not changed gold’s long-term support from central banks, retail investors, and buyers seeking a physical monetary asset outside the financial system.

Oil Above $100 Is Driving the Inflation Debate

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Prins said the Fed’s move was shaped by oil prices that had pushed above $100 per barrel. Oil previously retreated toward $80, easing inflation pressure, before rising again.

The Fed can raise the cost of money, https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2026/06/10/oil-shock-reveals-central-planning-limitations-004981";>but it cannot produce oil, open the Strait of Hormuz, create gold, or create silver. Prins argued that this is the key limitation in the popular claim that the central bank can simply control inflation through interest rates.

If oil returns to roughly $80 or $90 on a geopolitical resolution, inflation readings could decline. But Prins stressed that any such decline would come from lower energy costs, not because the Fed raised rates by 25 basis points.

The rate increase is more likely to land directly on households. Consumers with high credit-card balances, adjustable-rate mortgages, and home-equity loans can face higher monthly costs. Prins noted that these pressures arrive in an economy where people already see higher prices at the grocery store, gas station, and pharmacy.

Central Banks Keep Buying Gold

Prins said central banks registered their https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2026/09/03/central-banks-piled-in-more-gold-in-july-005182";>largest quarter of gold buying on record in the second quarter of 2026. They are using gold as a reserve asset, a diversification tool, a geopolitical hedge, a trade asset, and a sovereignty play.

That demand has remained in place despite the rise in Treasury yields. The People’s Bank of China, for example, is holding Treasury bonds at all-time lows while continuing to buy gold. The conventional argument is that Treasury yields near 5 percent should make bonds more attractive than gold because gold does not pay interest.

But Prins countered that gold has doubled over the last two years, even after its recent pullback. It may not provide an interest payment, but it can offer price appreciation, purchasing-power preservation, and protection against physical supply scarcity.

She also pointed to strong Western investment demand. Gold ETFs recorded a second record month in August, as buyers returned during a period when oil prices had declined, and hopes for a resolution in the Middle East briefly improved.

Dollar Weaponization Has a Counterweight

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Maharrey asked whether the https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2026/09/22/us-doubling-down-on-weaponization-of-the-dollar-005224";>U.S. government’s use of the dollar as a foreign-policy tool is accelerating the so-called debasement trade. Prins said the U.S. is attempting to use the dollar as leverage, but other countries have a clear counter-response. They buy more gold.

She said the freezing and sanctioning of Russian assets after Russia invaded Ukraine helped accelerate central-bank gold accumulation. The reaction was not confined to countries facing an immediate threat. Gold buying became a more established reserve-management practice across central banks.

Every new use of the dollar, U.S. government policy, or U.S. Treasuries as a geopolitical tool gives foreign monetary authorities another reason to diversify. Prins said this dynamic must be considered alongside the traditional focus on Treasury yields.

Treasury Buybacks Are Tiny Against $40 Trillion in Debt

The Treasury Department https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2026/09/24/treasury-announces-second-oversized-bond-buyback-as-it-tries-to-put-a-lid-on-yields-005234";>bought back $6 billion in long-term Treasuries and announced another $6 billion operation the following day. Maharrey noted that the 30-year Treasury yield continued moving higher, reaching a session high near 5.38 percent and later nudging to 5.42 percent before the next buyback.

Prins called the operations a form of beta testing for a larger Treasury buyback program. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had discussed such a plan from the beginning of his tenure, she said, and the current operations show that the government has begun building the systems, language, and market expectations for a potentially larger program.

Still, $6 billion is negligible beside https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2026/09/10/treasury-department-announces-even-bigger-bond-buyback-market-shrugs-005192";>more than $40 trillion in U.S. public debt and roughly $1 trillion in annual interest costs. The government is effectively trying to reduce debt by issuing more debt, a circular process that resembles quantitative easing.

Prins traced the precedent back to the Panic of 1907, when the Treasury Department conducted a $25 million buyback before the Federal Reserve existed. The current effort may give the Treasury a tool it can use independently of the Fed, whether in a future market crisis, a war-related emergency, or a period of more serious debt stress.

A Gold Market Waiting for Breathing Room

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Prins said the Iran conflict and high oil prices have https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2026/09/22/us-doubling-down-on-weaponization-of-the-dollar-005224";>created a temporary lid on gold. Even so, gold had started moving back toward $4,600 and $4,700 before the latest volatility and renewed attention to the Fed’s rate hike.

She expects gold buyers who entered around $4,300 to $4,400 to become more comfortable accumulating as the market steadies. ETF investors can move quickly in and out of positions, but central banks and sovereign wealth funds need physical gold. That difference matters because physical supply, new mine development, and access to dependable jurisdictions remain constrained.

For Prins, gold’s long-term outlook depends less on any single Fed meeting and more on the continuing demand from buyers who want a scarce, physical asset. Rate hikes may cause short-term price moves, but they do not resolve the debt problem, create commodities, or eliminate the incentive for central banks to diversify.

Commodity Wars and the Next Phase of the Global Economy

Prins is completing the manuscript for a new book, Commodity Wars, which she expects to be published in late 2027 or early 2028. The book examines the historical and current role of physical commodities in international competition.

In addition to gold and silver, it will cover uranium, copper, antimony, tungsten, and other strategic materials. Prins said countries use hard assets as weapons and as defenses, a pattern that has become more important in an era of financialization, debt expansion, and geopolitical conflict.

For more from Nomi Prins, visit NomiPrins.com and Printsights.Substack.com. For analysis of gold, silver, inflation, the Federal Reserve, Treasury markets, and sound money, follow Money Metals Weekly Market Wrap.

A rough week for metals—and a bigger story beneath it...

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:00:00 EST

Welcome to this week’s Market Wrap Podcast, I’m Mike Gleason.

Coming up in a moment, we have an exclusive interview with Nomi Prins, renowned market commentator, author and founder and CEO of Prinsight Global. Nomi chimes in the recent Federal Reserve rate increase, the first in roughly three years, and argues how rising rates don't directly lower the price of oil or other physical commodities like the Fed may expect or want, but it does make borrowing more expensive for consumers and businesses.

Nomi and Mike Maharrey also discuss how the ever-growing central bank demand for gold continues to show us just how much countries around the world are trying to de-risk themselves from the dollar and provide protection against future geopolitical turmoil. And then how assets like gold and silver are going to become increasingly important as a result of this dynamic.

So, stick around for that and a whole lot more during a fascinating conversation with the highly-respected and well-spoken Nomi Prins, coming up after this week’s market update.

And as a reminder we would be incredibly grateful if you would be willing to like, rate and comment on this podcast wherever you are consuming this content. And please subscribe to this podcast as well. We would be very appreciative, and it would help us grow this podcast even further. So, thank you for doing that!

Gold and silver are ending a choppy week with a reminder that the paper markets can change direction quickly. The larger story, though, is moving at a very different speed. While traders react to every shift in interest rates, the U.S. Treasury is trying to manage those rates, and China is taking delivery of an extraordinary amount of gold.

Let’s start with the price action. Gold finished last week at about $4,390 an ounce, and silver closed near $67. That was a gain for both metals, even after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates. But the strength didn’t carry straight through this week.

Gold slid on Monday and Tuesday, with New York futures finishing Tuesday around $4,339. Silver also lost ground after last week’s stronger showing. Both metals came under additional pressure Thursday as bond yields remained elevated and the dollar firmed. As of this Friday morning recording gold is now trading at $4,297 an ounce, down nearly $100 on the week or 2.1%.

As for silver. the white metal is off $2 or 3.0% to check in at $64.91. Platinum is down 1.4% to trade at $1,788, and finally palladium is off by 2.5% to come in at $1,292 an ounce.

These are moving prices, of course, but the broad picture is clear: last week’s rebound gave way to another bout of selling.

So, what’s weighing on metals? Well, higher interest rates offer investors more income from bonds and cash. That can make an asset like gold, which pays no interest, less appealing to short-term traders.

Silver usually takes an even bumpier ride because it trades as both a monetary metal and an industrial commodity.

Here’s the twist. The same rising bond yields that are pressuring gold have Washington scrambling to push those yields down.

This week, the Treasury announced another $6 billion buyback of older, long-term government bonds. It was the second expanded operation in two weeks.

The idea is simple enough: buying bonds can lift their prices and, in turn, bring their yields down.

But there’s a catch. Treasury pays for the buyback by selling other debt, generally with shorter maturities. In plain English, the government is borrowing to retire some of what it previously borrowed.

Nobody should mistake a $6 billion operation for a cure to America’s debt problem. The bond market is measured in the tens of trillions of dollars. Still, the signal matters.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has stepped up these operations while the federal government faces more than a trillion dollars a year in interest expense. Last week’s buyback briefly pulled yields lower, but they started climbing again within an hour. Ahead of Thursday’s operation, the 30-year Treasury yield reached about 5.42 percent.

Think about what that means. Washington would like borrowing costs to come down. Bond investors, meanwhile, are demanding higher returns to lend for decades. And every increase in rates makes the government’s enormous debt more expensive to carry.

Does a Treasury buyback mean gold must go up tomorrow? Of course not. Higher yields can hurt gold in the near term, and we’ve seen that this week.

But if the government finds it increasingly difficult to finance its spending without trying to steer the bond market, that raises a deeper question: how much confidence should savers place in an ever-growing stack of government IOUs?

Now look at what’s happening on the other side of the world.

China imported more than 1,100 tonnes of gold in the first eight months of this year, spending about $159 billion, according to Chinese customs data. That’s already more gold than the country imported in all of 2025. For the period covered by the available data, imports are at their highest level since at least 2017.

Why the appetite? Chinese investors have been looking for alternatives to stocks and property. Gold has also commanded a slight premium in China, creating an incentive for more metal to move into the country.

A relatively strong yuan and changes to import licenses helped, too. So, this is a real flow of metal, although the headline number doesn’t tell us that demand will keep rising every single month.

In fact, there are signs of a summer slowdown. Withdrawals from the Shanghai Gold Exchange fell in August, and jewelry demand has remained soft.

At the same time, Chinese gold exchange-traded funds added 11 tonnes during the month. Different parts of the market are sending different signals. The record import pace deserves attention, but it doesn’t make China a one-way bet.

And then there’s the People’s Bank of China. It reportedly adding roughly 20 tonnes of gold to its reserves in August, its 23rd consecutive month of reported purchases. Official gold holdings reached about 2,386 tonnes. That’s another buyer operating on a very different timetable from the trader watching this afternoon’s bond yield.

There’s a connection between these two stories. The United States is trying to keep its borrowing costs under control. China is drawing gold into its market, while its reported holdings of U.S. Treasury debt fell to their lowest level since 2008 in July.

That doesn’t prove every dollar leaving Treasuries is going straight into gold; these are different figures measuring different things. It does show why the global demand for physical metal can matter even when gold has a difficult week in New York.

For American investors, the lesson is to keep the time horizons straight. A rising yield can knock gold or silver down today. A Chinese import surge won’t prevent a sharp selloff next Thursday. But neither of those daily moves settles the longer question of what happens when debt keeps growing and governments become more anxious about the cost of carrying it.

Gold and silver are insurance against risks that don’t disappear because a chart turns red for a few sessions. That’s why the pullback deserves perspective, not panic. Watch whether bond yields continue to defy Treasury’s efforts, and watch whether physical gold demand in China holds up as the year moves into its busy final quarter. Those developments will tell us much more than a single day’s tick on the screen.

Well now, without further delay, and for more on the markets, the economy and the precious metals, let’s get right to our exclusive interview with well-known market commentator and author Nomi Prins.

Mike Maharrey: Greetings. I'm Mike Maharrey, and I'm joined today by Nomi Prins. Nomi has a PhD in international strategic studies with a specialization in an international political economy. To say her resume is impressive would be an understatement. I'm not going to even try to go through everything, but she has a long track record in both government and private sector, finance banking, and she's the author of multiple books, a great speaker and a really good analyst, and I'm excited to speak with her today. How are you doing today, Nomi?

Nomi Prins: I'm great, Mike, and it's always a pleasure to speak with you.

Mike Maharrey: Well, it's exciting to have you here, and there's so much, I guess, craziness. I don't want to use too much hyperbole, but I don't know that craziness is hyperbole in this age. I kind of wanted to start our discussion talking a little bit about the Federal Reserve. Recently had a rate hike last week. We've got a new Fed chair, and gold is really reacting to the mechanizations of the Fed and this anticipation of higher interest rates. I'd like to first just get your overall impression with the Fed, the rate hike, and is the proper response to sell your gold?

Nomi Prins: Well, I think those are excellent questions, Mike, as always. I want to start with the end of that. The proper response to what's going on is absolutely not to sell your gold, it's actually to add more gold. And going back to why and the other points of your question, the reality is a lot of things have been happening since the Iran war broke out. And as we know, right before that happened, gold was at all-time highs around $5,500 an ounce. It subsequently dropped in about two different beats, one beat when the war started, another beat when the reality sunk in that it wasn't going to end quickly. But since then, we've pretty much been in a range. I'll talk about that a bit, but the Fed component of that is that until last week, we did not have a Fed rate hike. We got a new chair in Kevin Warsh.

There was a lot of headlines and conversations as to whether he was really a dove or a hawk based on old things that he did in different positions in the Fed. The reality is he pretty much was neutral if you kind of bounce out his. He did vote for QE and then he said it wasn't a good. There was a lot of things that happened and we've written about the specifics of that, but moving towards today and now, the Fed did vote to raise rates and did last week 25 basis points. Three of the Fed governors had already voted to do that at the prior meeting. And so, this was basically a substantiation of that for I think two reasons. One is that oil prices were above 100. That's literally what I went on record as saying last week. I was in New York doing the rounds on different media and such.

And why is 100 on oil important? Well, of course we saw inflation rise in the beginning of the war, come down as oil prices came down around 80, which is where I think the band will ultimately wind up, and then pop back up as it went to 100 because whether or not those figures or any of the permutations of them strip out energy costs, they're a thing. And so when the Fed looks at inflation, it has to recognize that there are external factors such as oil prices being above 100 psychologically and actually that affect those numbers. Can the Fed impact the price of oil? Absolutely not. Can it impact the price of any physical thing? Absolutely not. But Kevin Warsh in that position can flex its sort of independent muscle and use the fact, say it one more time, that oil prices were above 100 as a reason for the whole committee to effectively agree to raise rates by 25 basis points.

If something positive happens in terms of any form of resolution in the with respect to the US or however that might break down and oil comes back down around 80 / 90, we're going to see inflation prices different. We're going to see the Fed back off and we're going to see the market stop talking about it for a minute. But it's highly contingent on what's going on there. Meanwhile, going back to the end of your question, beginning of my answer, gold has settled I think in a range. I mean yes, it dipped a little bit last week, but effectively it's in a 43, $4,400 range where it's been for much of this period after those initial drops down. And I think that's very healthy because what it shows people coming in, and we just saw second record months, second highest record in gold ETFs in August when there looked like there would be some resolution and oil prices had come back down before they popped back up.

We saw more gold buying in the West through those ETFs, but we also see continued gold buying by central banks. They had their largest quarter on record in the second quarter of this year because they are using gold as a geopolitical, as a trade, as a reserve, as a diversification play and as a sovereignty play. And that's going to continue to happen. So regardless of where treasury yields are, what happens with the Fed, that buying is going to continue. I think the retail buyers that have come back in around 43, 4,400 in August are going to feel good about the levels that they got in at. I think they'll accumulate from those levels. Again, it's a question of what happens with oil inflation in the near term, but gold is very undervalued right now with respect to the demand it has and the reality of its physical scarcity in terms of real high quality, good jurisdiction gold coming into the market and into the hands of active users of gold such as central banks.

Mike Maharrey: It's interesting. Speaking of the war, we saw just recently that the US is planning on using the dollar as kind of a billy club to keep people in line and not support Iranian airlines. It was kind of the specific thing that Bessent was talking about. I'm curious how significant do you think this weaponization of the dollar is having, what kind of effect do you think is it having on these other central bankers who might not be on friendly terms with the US when they look at the way. Is this part of the debasement trade or is that weaponization of the dollar overstated?

Nomi Prins: Well, I think it's stated as the US wants to state it in that they're trying to use the dollar as a club. But that said, the actual reaction to that, and we've seen that in multiple cases, and the most recent, but the sort of new catalyst for the current trend upward in gold prices was what happened after Russia invaded Ukraine and there was a freeze and a sanction on their assets and so forth, and a lot of central banks started buying gold. And then it became more of a common place activity to continue to buy gold, whether or not there was a direct threat or even a potential threat with respect to reserves being held in different countries in the United States or Western governments somehow getting involved in that. It just became more of a reason for central banks to really speed up gold buying programs.

And we, again, continue to see that happen with last quarter's record high gold buying. But also what's interesting is that every time there is this sort of weaponization of the US dollar relative to other countries and US policy, other central banks buy gold. So the direct reaction is for them to buy more gold or to continue with the current buying plans that they have, again, on an individual central bank basis, this differs. But if you look, for example, at one of the largest gold buyers and largest central banks, People's Bank of China, right now they're sitting at all-time lows of treasury bonds. Now, the headline math about treasury yields is you should buy them because they're at 5% and that's really, really high and that's better than gold because gold doesn't return anything. But in actuality, gold prices have doubled in the last two years, even to where we are at today.

They don't pay an interest payment yield, but they pay appreciation, wealth preservation, purchasing poverty, and they're also prices that hold and rise in the wake of scarcity of physical supply. So all of these things are present in gold. And so I think any use of the US government or the US dollar or US treasuries for these purposes has to be examined in light of the counter use of gold.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah, absolutely. There's a couple of directions I want to go. I'm trying to think of what the best way to take this, because I want to talk a little bit more about bonds and bond yields, but I guess before that, let's kind of pivot back to the Fed for a moment. It's interesting that everybody has kind of this foregone conclusion that with oil prices spiking, we're going to see an uptick in inflation, and that's reasonable if you're measuring inflation by the CPI. And yet I don't feel like people are paying as much attention to the other side of this equation, and that's the huge massive debt black hole that's floating out there in the economy. How constrained do you think that the Fed really is in terms of their ability to fight inflation right now, given the levels of debt? They'll never admit it publicly, but are there private conversations that are concerned about this debt level?

Nomi Prins: Yeah, I mean, there's conversations that have to be going on between the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve. That's one of the reasons that Scott Bessent running the Treasury decided to finally take the first step of something he'd been talking about since he became Treasury Secretary, which is a kind of effective treasury buyback program or quantitative easing program. It's tiny, tiny, tiny. It doesn't make a debt whatsoever at all right now in terms of the debt, but the announcement of it allows for that potential number, the treasury buying back, some of its own debt to happen. Now that said, it's buying back its own debt with its own debt. So it's very circular, but that's exactly what the Fed had been doing with quantitative easing in the wake of the financial crisis, the wake COVID is effectively creating future money and using it to buy current debt.

So basically, the same thing. And so with rates at 5% or so in the 10-year part of the curve, you're talking about higher interest payments that the US government has to make on all the new debt that it's raising. So now that we're over $40 trillion worth of public debt, not all of that's at 5%, but as we've been adding and we have been accelerating the addition of debt to our public till while rates have actually been at higher levels and rising, that means that the United States government is stuck paying more interest on its debt. So, in order to reduce the debt, you have to buy the debt, but in order to buy the debt, you have to basically create debt. So it's a very odd circular way of working, but that's exactly what the treasury I think wants to do more of and what the Fed knows, is it in that quandary?

Yes, because raising rates at 25-basis points a clip, even if that happens, doesn't literally make a dent in the cost of servicing debt, which they know because they're actually at a negative as well in their balance sheet. They have to repatriate funds to the treasury department and they're actually on a negative on that. So their own balance sheet's a complete mess and it's been for several years now. So it's doing a couple different things. It's talking to the market about being these inflation fighters. And for some reason, which we could go into in greater depth, the news continues or the main news companies continue to run with the story that when the Fed says it can control inflation, that it actually can. I don't know why this continues to happen except for the fact that it's what passes for headlines and it's an easy conversation to have.

The Fed says it can control inflation. We're going to say that if the Fed raises rates, it's controlling inflation. So therefore those two things are equivalents and they're not. The Fed can't create oil, it can't open a strait, it can't create gold, it can't create silver, it can't create literally any hard asset that we use to work our world. As a result, any prices that increase on any of those assets, the production of, the use of, the movement of, is a cost and can or cannot inflate regardless of what the Fed is doing. So it's really two ways of looking at inflation, that they can change the cost of money and try to reduce the leverage in the market, less borrowing because it's harder to borrow because it's an extra 25 basis points this month or what have you, but they can't really change inflation.

That's a factor of so many other things. Now it could be that there's a resolution in the strait tomorrow and after we have this conversation, I don't think so, but let's say that happens and oil goes back down to 70 or 80, which was when the Fed only had three governors who wanted a rate hike and everybody else didn't. That could happen. When it does happen, that will reduce inflation. That will have zero to do with the fact that the Fed raised rates last week.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah. Now, one thing the Fed can do is create inflation with its money creation and its mechanizations. I think people forget that sometimes as well, and they seem to like to do that. Yeah, I'm with you on the war. I'm not particularly sanguine that we'll have peace, but Lord, I hope we can get to that point, not only for the economic aspect of it, but just so that people can quit dying. But yeah, it's interesting. It almost feels like the war is a lid on the price of gold. It wants to come up, but we've got this kind of war lid. Do you think if the war does continue to drag on at some point that lid will come off by itself even if we're not getting a resolution just because this seemed to be this pent-up demand for gold under the surface?

Nomi Prins: Yeah, I think we started to see some of that really before the latest skirmish in Iran or the latest lack of resolution as well as the headlines around the Fed rate hike. We saw gold back off a bit, but before that it had started to creep up to 46, $4,700. It started to be, as you said, move past the volatility that's happening in that region, and I think it will continue to do that. I mean, we've seen that and we saw a little backing off there is volatility, but again, it's at a very solid lower level in terms of where it can appreciate from and where we've seen it appreciate from just in recent weeks. So I do think there will be more of a calming down in terms of the expectations of gold to have to follow what's there. I just think it's hard when oil is so high, which is related to going there, for there to be enough breathing room for new buyers to come into gold.

Again, we saw that in August and that is because we saw those prices back off. I think any month where that happens, the people that have now gotten into those gold ETFs, we had a second record month in August, for example, the ones that are playing gold, not physically, but sort of through the ETF markets so they can move in and out of those positions very quickly, which is what we saw in the beginning of the year when the war started. Yeah, they're in a great levels. And what happens psychologically as new gold buyers, on the one hand when gold sinks quite a lot quickly, they get afraid and they come out. But on the other hand, when they start to toe back in and they're at good levels, even there's a little volatility at some of the lower levels, they feel more comfortable about staying in and adding to those positions.

I think that's where we are, and I think adding will continue to move the price to gold up. And of course, as we just talked about, central banks will be buying it anyway, sovereign wealth funds will be buying it anyway. There's definitely been more buying of gold relative to treasury issuance coming out. So that trend continues anyway in terms of the long-term holders of gold, and those holders need physical gold. And that goes back to the scarcity value of new mines, new supply, and what's happening to feed that demand.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah. Do you think it's fair to say that these rate hikes are far more likely to have an impact on your average person on Main Street who has a credit card with a high interest rate and somebody who's wanting to buy a house that's looking at mortgage rates, that that's going to have more impact there than it is actually on the macro inflation picture?

Nomi Prins: Yeah, absolutely. Especially for people with high debt, high credit card debt. And of course, that's at historic highs now because it just means that they're going to get letters from their credit card providers and they're going to say Fed raised rates, we're going to have to raise rates. Same thing with any floating rate mortgage or home equity loan. There's less of them, but some of them do adjust and you're going to get letters saying that they've adjusted rate upward and that's going to pinch wallets even more than inflation already does. We're already in a very constrained economy. I could throw out some fancy economic stats on that from a high towery way, but also anyone just needs to go into a supermarket at any point in time and recognize that the checkout line has a bunch of really strained people in it with the reality of things just costing more whatever it is they're buying.

And so you add that to people having to pay more for need goods, whether that's utilities or food or shelter or medicine with credit cards and that price going up, it does definitely create more of a burden on the average person than again, dense actual inflation of those prices. Yeah,

Mike Maharrey: And people are struggling. I think you make a really good point. I don't have to tout out a bunch of data. People know they're going to the grocery store, they're going to the gas station, they see their own bank accounts. I have people tell me often, they'll get these kind of rosy, "Oh, GDP grew by X or inflation is down or jobs, there's lots of jobs out there." And people tell me they don't see that reality in their own lives. And I think there's a little bit of a disconnect between the financial stuff up here and the reality of life and Main Street. I hate using that term Main Street because it's so cliche, but it's the only thing I can think of.

Nomi Prins: But it's true. Yesterday, just as a really clear example, I went to CVS with my husband and we were just buying items, and dental floss was like $5.99. I don't remember. These are kinds of items that you don't buy all the time. I just note it because this happened and I was thinking as he was like, "When did that happen? When did a tiny little thing? When did that happen?" So whether it's a regular thing you're buying or whether it's a thing you buy periodically, I mean, everything has really been inflating in terms of price for the average consumer. Yeah.

Mike Maharrey: When you say dental floss, I think like 99 cents, right? I don't think $5 for dental floss. That's crazy.

Nomi Prins: Nobody does!

Mike Maharrey: You mentioned Secretary of the Treasury Bessent and the bond buybacks. So we did $6 trillion, or not trillion, $6 billion in long-term treasury buybacks last week, and he announced yesterday they're going to do another six billion today. That sounds like a lot, but when you look at the totality of the treasury market, it's really a drop in the bucket. What is he doing? Because I don't see how he's doing enough to really tip the scale in terms of treasury demand, but there's obviously a reason that he's doing this now. What do you think is going on here?

Nomi Prins: I look at this whole thing like beta testing a bigger treasury buyback. He was talking about some sort of plan of this nature from the beginning of having gotten the seat as the head of the Treasury Department, and this is the actualizing of that plan. And you're right, six billion out of a $40 trillion debt is really just not anything, but it's a statement that we have worked out the systems, we've worked out the language, we've had the back channel conversations, all the things that need to happen over a long period of time in general for anything that happens in the government. I think the first six billion, the second six billion, the sort of toe in the water beta testing. We've shaken out language of the idea. We've announced it to the market before there are possibilities of bigger treasury buybacks because it means absolutely nothing in the scheme of the value that six billion is relative to say just a trillion dollars’ worth of interest on the $40 trillion worth of debt per year.

It's literally nothing and the billions, it's just literally nothing. But at the same time, it sort of opens potentially a portal to be able to do more in the future independently of the Fed. Whether that's a regular future, whether that's a crisis future, whether that's war related, we need more for the Defense Department future, whatever it is. But while that six billion was happening, the debt increased by more than that. So the debts increasing by more than that buyback is actually remotely able to touch it. I just mean in physical time, like in a week or in a day, but I think it's testing the ground for something additional to the Fed. The first buybacks, the first quantitative easing were actually done by the Treasury Department back in 1907, $25 million for the panic of 1907, which went directly to JP Morgan's coffers and he gave it to his friends, but it came from the Treasury Department and we didn't have a Fed.

So now we kind of have these two bodies and I think there's a lot of other factors to the Treasury Department asserting itself in this way.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah. I need better friends. I need friends that are going to hand me some billions of dollars. Isn't it crazy though? We're sitting here talking about $6 billion in treasuries being literally nothing. When you said that in my head, I'm like, that's kind of crazy when you really think about it. Are you surprised that yields didn't react more? When he announced the buyback the first time and initially they said it was going to be between two and $4 billion, there was a little bit of a dip in treasury yields, but it came back up within a day. And then when they actually did it, it was more than they said and it moved for maybe 20 minutes. And then when he announced it yesterday, they just kept going up. Are you surprised by that, that there hasn't really been any impact at all?

Nomi Prins: No, because as you said, the only impact was in the beginning, I think possibly with the expectation that more could come or the door was going to open sooner or just something that would be more meaningful. I think that's where we saw the rally, some minor rally in treasury yields go down, gold prices go up. But the actual amounts were tiny. The latest amount was equally tiny. And unless there's something substantive, and again, this all could be part of a test program in some way, whether that's next month, another six billion or 60 billion, or it's in a year from now when something else happens, it's a hundred billion. I mean, we don't know. This is a process, but I think the market at the second buy was pretty much jaded by the fact that these numbers were in fact tiny and sort of like, show me something real, which is not unequivalent to quantitative easing movements.

When we were back post-financial crisis, the market would move when there were significant quantitative easing movements, and then it would get all sort of stubborn when they didn't, and it would pre-move before the Fed to try to get the Fed or think it was getting the Fed to psychologically do more. There's some of that going on. There's just a lot of other noise in terms of what the market's grappling with that this latest move just. And the fact that Treasury yields moved up probably had nothing to do with it, but if it did, it was just an assessment that, okay, that's not enough. Next thing. Yeah,

Mike Maharrey: Next. Yeah, makes sense. So I understand that you're working on a new book, and are you pretty close to being done? Is that what I understand?

Nomi Prins: Yes, I actually have a new book I'm just about to complete the manuscript for. It's very thick, and it'll be out, I think at the end of 2027 or beginning of 2028, mostly because of the publishing process. It'll be in a lot of places and languages and all that kind of thing. So these things have a life of their own, but my part of the main part, yes, I'm about finished with the manuscript for my book, Commodity Wars, and it will hopefully explain a lot of both the historical and the present and the future path of where we're at from the standpoint of commodities, physical, gold, silver, uranium, copper, things we kind of know more about as well as things that are more esoteric from antimony to tungsten to other things, and just how countries really do weaponize hard assets or use them as defense, and how we really have, and how the private sector and governments have basically done this since our age of financialization started with the Barrons becoming the bankers, which I've written about and all the president's bankers.

So it's interesting. Anyway, long answer, but I'm an author, so hopefully that's effective.

Mike Maharrey: That's exciting because you tie together the historical context, which kind of helps you understand. They say that you can't really understand the present or the future without understanding the past, and I really appreciate the way you can put those things into context in a way that readers can understand. I would encourage the audience to go and check out Nomi's books. She's got a lot of good stuff out there and you can expand your mind, which is always a good thing. I think with that, I'm going to let you go and wrap this up, but before I do, I definitely want to let you give you an opportunity to tell folks where they can follow your work, find your books, and follow your daily activities as well.

Nomi Prins: Sure. So on our Substack, which is princiites.substack.com, we have a lot of material and different tiers for both complimentary and model portfolio, really deep research. I go out to the mines, I get the hard hats on, I'm underneath the ground when we recommend analysis or potential companies for consideration for people. And we're also just about to launch on my own site, which is princiitesglobal.com, a separate portfolio product, which will go really to the first stages of the supply chain for different prospect generators and other companies, which is launching on October 1st. So look out for that.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah, I really do appreciate just the opportunity to talk to you. I appreciate the fact that you're one of the people out there that really seems to understand that. I like to use the word malfeasance when I talk about central banking, this kind of monetary malfeasance. It seems like so many people just accept what the central bankers do is that these are wise, benevolent, above the fray, data-driven, no politics, and you seem to see through all of that. And so I think that really kind of gives you an edge in terms of your analysis in terms of contrasting that with some of the more mainstream stuff. So I appreciate that and appreciate all you do. And thank you so much for taking a little bit of time out of your day and hanging out with me and putting up with my scatterbrained afternoon that I'm having today.

So thank you so much for that.

Nomi Prins: Thank you, Mike. It's always a pleasure. All right.

Mike Maharrey: Well, we'll talk to you again soon.

Another wonderful interview with Nomi Prins there and we’re certainly thrilled to have been able to have her back on the podcast and I trust you enjoyed that one.

Well, that will do it for this week. Be sure to check back next Friday for our next Weekly Market Wrap Podcast. And don’t miss our second weekly podcast, the Money Metals Midweek Memo, which airs each Wednesday. To check out any of our audio programs just visit https://www.moneymetals.com/podcasts";>MoneyMetals.com/podcasts or find them on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And as a big help to us we would ask you to please like, subscribe, download and rate our podcasts. Doing so helps us extend the reach of this material.

Until next time, this has been Mike Gleason with https://www.moneymetals.com/";>Money Metals Exchange, thanks for listening and have a wonderful weekend everybody.

Silver Dollar Value - Silver Content and Melt Value of Every U.S. Dollar Coin - Morgan, Peace, Trade, Eisenhower, and Silver Eagle Types - Money Metals

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:00:00 EST

A silver dollar is a United States one-dollar coin struck in silver. That definition sounds simple until you open a drawer and discover four different dollar coins in it, and only one of them might have any silver.

Every U.S. dollar coin minted from 1794 through 1935 was struck in 90 percent silver. After a long hiatus, dollar coins re-emerged in 1971 and have produced the following coin series in the years since:

The Eisenhower
The Susan B. Anthony
The Sacagawea
The Presidential series

Almost all post-1971 coins contain no silver, with the exception of San Francisco-minted Eisenhower coins. These coins were minted as collector editions and contain 40 percent silver.

Separate from all of these is the American Silver Eagle, a bullion coin carrying a full troy ounce of .999 fine silver that happens to have a one-dollar face value stamped on it.

This guide will explore each U.S. silver dollar coin type. It will also tell you how to identify the one in your hand in about ten seconds, give you the exact silver weight for each, and answer the question most guides avoid: if what you want is silver, is a silver dollar a good way to acquire it?

What Counts as a Silver Dollar … and What Doesn't

The United States has issued dollar coins in three distinct eras.

The Three Eras of the U.S. Dollar Coin

Struck silver, 1794–1935. This era includes the Flowing Hair dollar through the last Peace dollar, every circulating U.S. dollar was 90 percent silver and 10 percent copper. The Coinage Act of 1792 set the standard at 371.25 grains of pure silver per dollar and, with the exception of the Trade dollar, that standard held for 141 years.

The clad gap, 1971–present. When dollar coin production resumed in 1971 with the Eisenhower dollar, the silver content had been removed from the coin. Circulating dollar coins from 1971 forward are copper-nickel or manganese-brass clad over a copper core. They are worth one dollar.

Modern bullion, 1986–present. The American Silver Eagle launched in 1986. Unlike the struck silver coins, it is not a circulating coin. It is a bullion product with a legal tender face value of one dollar and one full troy ounce of .999 fine silver inside it.

Every U.S. Dollar Coin, By Composition

Coin	Years	Composition	Fine silver content	Weight	Diameter
Flowing Hair dollar	1794–1795	90% silver	~0.7734 oz	26.96 g	39–40 mm
Draped Bust dollar	1795–1804	90% silver	~0.7734 oz	26.96 g	39–40 mm
Gobrecht Dollar	1836-1839	90% silver	0.7734 oz	26.73 g	38.1 mm
Seated Liberty dollar	1840–1873	90% silver	0.7734 oz	26.73 g	38.1 mm
Trade dollar	1873–1885	90% silver	0.7874 oz	27.22 g	38.1 mm
Morgan dollar	1878–1904, 1921	90% silver	0.7734 oz	26.73 g	38.1 mm
Peace dollar	1921–1935	90% silver	0.7734 oz	26.73 g	38.1 mm
Eisenhower dollar (circulation)	1971–1978	Copper-nickel clad	None	22.68 g	38.1 mm
Eisenhower dollar (S-mint collector)	1971–1974, 1976	40% silver	0.3161 oz	24.62 g	38.1 mm
Susan B. Anthony dollar	1979–1981, 1999	Copper-nickel clad	None	8.1 g	26.5 mm
Sacagawea / Native American dollar	2000–present	Manganese-brass clad	None	8.1 g	26.5 mm
Presidential dollar	2007–2016, 2020	Manganese-brass clad	None	8.1 g	26.5 mm
American Innovation dollar	2018–present	Manganese-brass clad	None	8.1 g	26.5 mm
American Silver Eagle	1986–present	.999 fine silver	1.000 oz	31.1 g	40.6 mm

The Dollar Coins That Contain No Silver at All

If you are holding a Susan B. Anthony, a Sacagawea, a Presidential dollar, or an American Innovation dollar, it contains no silver. These coins are worth a single dollar as currency. Assuming the coin is in circulated condition, it is worth nothing above the face value.

The Eisenhower dollar is the one that becomes most confusing for people. The Eisenhower dollar causes the most confusion, so it deserves a closer look further down.

How to Tell in Ten Seconds Whether Your Dollar Contains Silver

You can settle this without a scale most of the time. Work through it in order.

Step One: Read the Date

1935 or earlier? This coin has a silver content of 90 percent. Every U.S. dollar coin struck through 1935 was. When you own one of these coins, you hold roughly three-quarters of a troy ounce of silver.

1971 through 1978? It is an Eisenhower dollar and it probably contains no silver.

1979 or later, and small? If it is about the size of a quarter rather than the size of a hockey puck, it is a Susan B. Anthony, Sacagawea, Presidential, or American Innovation dollar. It does not hold silver.

1986 or later, large, and marked "1 OZ. FINE SILVER"? It is an American Silver Eagle. One full troy ounce of .999 silver.

There is a gap in the middle worth knowing about: no U.S. dollar coins were struck for circulation between 1936 and 1970.

Step Two: The Eisenhower Exception Most Guides Get Wrong

Eisenhower dollars struck for circulation between 1971 and 1978 are copper-nickel clad if they were minted at Philadelphia or Denver. Hundreds of millions of these coins were made.

However, there are 40 percent silver Eisenhower dollars that were struck at the San Francisco Mint. These coins were minted as collector issues. The Mint struck these coins between 1971 and 1974, then again in 1976. They came in several forms:

“Blue Ikes”: uncirculated 40 percent silver dollars sold in blue envelopes
“Brown Ikes”: proof 40 percent silver dollars sold in brown boxes
1976-S Bicentennial silver sets: three-coin sets including the silver Ike

There are three distinguishing characteristics that can set these coins apart. First, the S mint mark below Eisenhower’s neck. If there is no S, then there is no silver.

The second tell is the weight. A silver Ike runs about 24.6 grams against 22.7 for the clad version. The third thing to look for is the edge. Clad Ike coins show a visible copper stripe in the reeding, but a 40 percent silver coin does not.

There is another oddity that sometimes confuses newcomers: there are no dollar coins dated 1975. Coins struck in 1975 and 1976 both carry the dual date 1776-1976 for the Bicentennial.

Step Three: Weight, Diameter, and Edge

It is very common for Morgan and Peace dollars to have worn away dates. That is a side effect of decades spent in circulation. Fortunately, there is still a way to identify these coins even if their dates are no longer visible.

Simply check the physical specs. Genuine 90 percent silver dollars, whether they be Seated Liberty, Morgan, or Peace coins, weigh 26.73 grams and measure 38.1 millimeters across. The coins also show a reeded edge. An inexpensive jeweler’s scale can settle the question.

If a coin is significantly lighter than the given weight, it is either badly worn, cleaned aggressively, or counterfeit.

Two quick additional checks are also worth noting. First, a silver dollar is not magnetic. If a magnet draws the coin, it is not silver. Likewise, the coin’s edge should show a uniform silver-white color throughout its reeding. There should not be a copper-colored stripe.

The Classic 90 Percent Silver Dollars, 1794–1935

This time period produced seven coin series over 141 years. During that time, every coin was made with one alloy standard. Here is what each one is and what it holds.

Flowing Hair and Draped Bust, 1794–1804

These are the first U.S. silver dollars ever produced. They were authorized by the Coinage Act of 1792 and began production at the Philadelphia Mint beginning in 1794. The Flowing Hair design ran 1794–1795 before being replaced by the Draped Bust, a series that continued its production until 1804.

These coins are not bullion coins in any practical sense. Survivors are scarce and trade entirely on their numismatic value. Authentic examples are usually worth many multiples of their silver value. If you believe you have one, get it authenticated before you do anything else.

Gobrecht Dollar, 1836–1839

The Gobrecht dollar bridged the long gap between the early Draped Bust dollar and the Seated Liberty series. Christian Gobrecht designed these coins, which introduced the Seated Liberty design that eventually became standard on U.S. silver dollars.

Gobrecht dollars were produced from 1836 through 1839 in very small numbers compared with later Morgan and Peace dollars. Today, surviving examples are primarily numismatic coins rather than practical ways to buy silver.

Genuine Gobrecht dollars can carry substantial collector value. The exact value varies according to its date, variety, and authenticity. Its value should not be judged primarily by the silver it contains.

If you believe you have a Gobrecht dollar, avoid cleaning or polishing it and have the coin professionally authenticated before selling it.

Seated Liberty, 1840–1873

The Seated Liberty dollar was designed by Christian Gobrecht. Produced more than 35 years after the Draped Bust ended, it filled the long gap in silver dollar production. The coin was struck at Philadelphia, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Carson City. It contains 0.7734 troy ounces of silver.

Trade Dollar, 1873–1885: The Heavy One

The Trade dollar is the exception to every rule in this guide. It is also the coin most often left out of silver-content tables.

Congress authorized the Trade dollar in 1873 for a specific purpose: it was to compete with the Mexican peso in Asian commerce. To do that task, it had to carry more silver than the standard dollar. The coin was struck at 420 grains against the standard dollar’s 412.5. That amount equates to roughly 27.22 grams, still 90 percent fine, which works out to roughly 0.7874 troy ounces of pure silver.

That is about 1.8 percent more silver than a Morgan or a Peace dollar. Though that difference may seem small on a one-to-one comparison, it makes a significant difference in bags of coins.

The coin also holds a distinction no other American coin does: Congress demonetized it in July 1876. That move stripped the series of its legal tender status even as it was being minted.

Strangely enough, the coin remained demonetized for nearly ninety years. It was not until the Coinage Act of 1965 that the coin’s legal status was restored.

It is worthwhile to note that Trade dollars are among the most heavily counterfeited U.S. coins. This is largely because so many were struck for, and sent to, Asia. Avoid counterfeits by buying professionally graded coins or else from a reputable dealer that guarantees authenticity.

Morgan Dollar, 1878–1904 and 1921

https://www.moneymetals.com/buy/silver/silver-dollars/morgan-dollars";>The Morgan is the silver dollar that most Americans picture. The coin was designed by George T. Morgan and struck at the Philadelphia, New Orleans, San Francisco, Carson City, and Denver Mints. The coin carries 0.7734 troy ounces of silver in 26.73 grams of 90 percent alloy.

Common-date circulated Morgans, often sold as “culls,” trade close to their silver value plus a premium. Key dates, Carson City strikes, and high-grade uncirculated examples trade on rarity and condition instead. Some rare examples sell for enormous multiples of their silver value.

Peace Dollar, 1921–1935

Authorized to commemorate the end of World War I, the Peace dollar replaced the Morgan in late 1921 and ran through 1935. It has the same alloy, weight, and 0.7734 troy ounces of silver as the Morgan dollar. The 1921 issue was struck in high relief and is the most sought-after date in the series.

https://www.moneymetals.com/buy/silver/coins/peace-silver-dollar";>Peace dollars are somewhat less common than Morgans in the retail market, though not enough to change the buying math much.

How Much Is a Silver Dollar Worth?

The melt value of a 90 percent silver dollar is straightforward arithmetic:

Silver spot price x 0.7734 = melt value

Adjust the math according to different silver weights in different coins. The formula above works for a Morgan or Peace dollar. However, a Trade dollar weighs 0.7874 ounces. That is the multiplier you need to use for the equation to find the melt value of a Trade dollar.

A Silver Eagle contains one full ounce. Its https://www.moneymetals.com/silver-price";>melt value is the spot price itself.

Melt value is the floor value, not the total price. What you actually pay or receive depends on condition, date, mint mark, and whether the coin has collector demand above its metal.

A common-date circulated Morgan trades near melt plus a premium. A key date trades on rarity and can be worth many multiples of its silver.

For date-by-date values, grading, authentication, and guidance on selling, see our full guide: How Much Is a Silver Dollar Worth? That guide covers key dates for both the Morgan and Peace series, how the Sheldon grading scale affects price, how to spot a counterfeit, and where to sell.

Why So Few Old Silver Dollars Survive: The Pittman Act

Every guide will tell you certain Morgan dates are scarce. Few of them explain why. The answer ultimately comes from a single piece of legislation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittman_Act";>The Pittman Act, signed April 23, 1918, authorized the Treasury to melt up to 350 million standard silver dollars and sell the bullion. The bulk went to Britain, which needed silver to stabilize its currency in India during the First World War. The Treasury did not use the full authorization, but it came close: 270,232,722 silver dollars were converted to bullion.

As a result, roughly a quarter of a billion Morgan and Seated Liberty dollars were destroyed. Survival rates are very uneven across coin issues. Some had healthy original mintages that are now very scarce. Others had smaller mintages, but they are now among the most common issues.

The Act also required the Treasury to buy domestic silver and recoin the melted dollars, a process that ran from 1920 through 1933. That mandate is the entire reason the 1921 Morgan dollar exists. The series ended in 1904, but it was revived for one year purely to satisfy Pittman.

There is a later part of the story. Millions of the recoined dollars sat untouched in Treasury vaults for decades, including a large quantity of Carson City coins. The General Services Administration sold them off to the public in a series of mail-bid sales in the 1970s. That is why so many CC Morgans turn up today in hard plastic GSA holders.

If you own one of those holders, do not break it. The packaging itself carries value.

The practical takeaway is that you pay a premium for a scarce-date Morgan. A large part of what you pay was determined by a wartime melt in 1918, not by how many were struck.

Modern Dollar Coins: Eisenhower, Anthony, Sacagawea, and the Silver Eagle

Eisenhower Dollar, 1971–1978

The Eisenhower dollar was the first dollar coin to enter circulation in 36 years. The coin honored President Dwight Eisenhower on the obverse with an Apollo 11 mission design on the reverse. It has the same 38.1 mm diameter as the classic silver dollars. That is why the confusion persists to this day. It looks like a silver dollar.

The trouble is, circulation strikes are not silver. Only the https://www.moneymetals.com/40-silver-eisenhower-dollars-3161-oz-silver/268";>San Francisco collector issues covered above contain silver at 40 percent.

Susan B. Anthony, Sacagawea, Presidential, and American Innovation

None of these four series contains silver.

The Susan B. Anthony dollar (1979–1981, revived 1999) was shrunk to 26.5 mm to make it practical for vending machines. The problem was that the public often confused the smaller coin with a quarter.

The Sacagawea dollar (2000–present) retained the small size of its Susan B. Anthony predecessor. However, it added a golden manganese-brass surface to set it apart.

The Presidential series (2007–2016, plus 2020) and the American Innovation series (2018–present) use the same blank and add edge lettering. These coins exist because the Treasury had spent fifty years trying to make Americans use a dollar coin, and Americans keep declining. None of them are silver, and none of them carry bullion value.

American Silver Eagle, 1986–present

The Silver Eagle is the only modern U.S. dollar coin that is genuinely a silver dollar. It is one of the most-purchased silver bullion coins in the world.

The coin’s specs include one troy ounce of .999 fine silver, 40.6 mm across, 31.1 grams in total weight. The obverse of the coin features Adolph Weinman’s Walking Liberty design. It carries a one-dollar face value for legal tender purposes, which is a legal formality rather than an economic one. Its market value is driven primarily by its silver content and prevailing premium.

Two things set the Silver Eagle apart from the classic silver dollars for an investor. It is a full ounce rather than three-quarters of one, which makes the math trivial. And it is the U.S. silver coin that https://www.moneymetals.com/programs/iras";>qualifies for a precious metals IRA, which the Morgans and Peace dollars do not.

Silver Dollars Versus Other Ways to Buy Silver

If your goal is to own silver and convert dollars into ounces at the best rate you can get, then here is the catch. A silver dollar is one of the more expensive ways to do it.

The reason is structural. A silver dollar contains 0.7734 troy ounces, not a full ounce. So any premium you pay is spread across three-quarters of an ounce instead of a full one. That magnifies its effect on your cost per ounce.

On top of that, classic silver dollars carry a collector premium that generic silver does not. This is because they compete for the same coins with numismatists who are not concerned about the coin’s metal value at all.

What You Actually Pay Per Ounce

Run the comparison this way, using whatever live prices you find on the day:

Product	Silver content	Cost per troy ounce
Cull Morgan or Peace dollar	0.7734 oz	Coin price ÷ 0.7734
Pre-1965 90% junk silver (half dollars, quarters, dimes)	0.715 oz per $1 face	Bag price ÷ total ounces
1 oz generic silver round	1.000 oz	Round price
1 oz American Silver Eagle	1.000 oz	Coin price

Do that arithmetic before you buy and the ranking is usually the same: generic rounds and bars come in lowest, junk silver next, Silver Eagles above that because of the U.S. Mint's production costs, and cull silver dollars typically highest of the four on a per-ounce basis.

When a Silver Dollar is the Right Buy Anyway

None of that makes silver dollars a bad purchase. It does, however, make them a different purchase. There are good reasons to choose one:

You want the history. A Morgan dollar circulated through the American West. That is worth something to a lot of people, and it is not irrational to pay for it.

You want recognizability and divisibility. Pre-1965 U.S. silver is incredibly recognizable by any dealer in the country. A silver dollar is a convenient unit. It is larger than a junk silver half but smaller than a 10-ounce bar.

You want optionality on the numismatic side. A common-date Morgan is metal today. If collector demand for the series strengthens, it is also a coin. A generic round is only worth its metal value.

You want a physical asset that has already survived a century. These coins made it through the Pittman melt and the 1965 debasement. That is a track record.

Here’s the final takeaway: if you are buying ounces, https://www.moneymetals.com/buy/silver/rounds";>buy rounds or bars. If you are buying American monetary history that happens to contain silver, buy silver dollars. Both of them are legitimate purchases, but you have to know which one best suits your goal.

Which Silver Dollars Can Go in an IRA

Short answer: the American Silver Eagle qualifies. Morgan, Peace, Trade, Seated Liberty and 40 percent silver Eisenhower dollars do not.

The rule comes from the tax code. Silver held in a self-directed IRA must generally meet a .999 minimum fineness standard, with certain coins named as statutory exceptions. Classic U.S. silver dollars are .900 fine (90 percent silver, 10 percent copper) and fall below that threshold. The American Silver Eagle, at .999 fine, clears it comfortably and is additionally named in the statute.

Coin	Fineness	IRA-eligible
American Silver Eagle	.999	Yes
Morgan dollar	.900	No
Peace dollar	.900	No
Trade dollar	.900	No
Seated Liberty dollar	.900	No
Eisenhower dollar (40% silver)	.400	No

There is a broader principle behind the rule: IRAs are meant to hold investment metal, https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/investments-in-collectibles-in-individually-directed-qualified-plan-accounts";>not collectibles. A coin whose value depends on rarity and grade rather than metal content is treated as a collectible for tax purposes, which is why graded and certified silver dollars are excluded even when the underlying coin would otherwise qualify.

This is general information, not tax advice. Confirm eligibility for any specific product with your IRA custodian before you buy.

Face Value Versus Silver Value: What a Dollar Was Supposed to Be

The Coinage Act of 1792 did not define a dollar as a piece of paper, or as a unit of account, or as whatever the Treasury said it was. It defined a dollar as a specific quantity of silver: 371.25 grains of pure metal, which is 0.7734375 troy ounces. That was not a policy preference, but rather the word’s definition.

For 143 years, a U.S. dollar was exactly that. You could hold one and know precisely what a dollar was.

That same coin today has a melt value of roughly $50 while a paper dollar buys what a paper dollar buys. Nothing changed about the coin. It has the exact same specs it has always had.

What changed is the unit it is measured against.

That is the argument for owning precious metals. A silver dollar makes the case very clearly. It is a physical, dated, government-struck record of what the word “dollar” used to mean.

The Coinage Act of 1965 removed silver from circulating U.S. coinage entirely. The last tie between the dollar and gold was cut with the end of the Bretton Woods system in 1971. That was the same year that produced a non-silver Eisenhower dollar.

The silver coins did not lose their value, but the currency they once represented did. The result is those same coins are worth far more than their face value today.

Buying, Handling, and Storing Silver Dollars

Culls versus graded coins

A cull is a heavily worn, damaged, or otherwise low-grade silver dollar that sells for its metal value. It is the cheapest way into the series. If your interest is the metal, it is usually the right call. You are paying the smallest possible premium over the 0.7734 ounces inside.

In contrast, a graded coin has been authenticated and assigned a numeric grade by a third-party service such as PCGS or NGC. Then it is sealed in a tamper-evident holder.

Grading costs money and takes time. Typically, it is worth doing only when the coin’s numismatic value very clearly surpasses the expense of doing the grading. Generally a scarce date, a strong uncirculated, or a coin you intend to sell into the collector market. For a common circulated Morgan, grading costs more than it adds.

Never clean a silver dollar

This is the single most expensive mistake people make with inherited coins. Cleaning a silver dollar leaves microscopic scratches that graders detect immediately and that permanently reduce the coin’s value. Usually, the value reduction is drastic.

The toning on an old silver dollar is part of its condition. It should not be looked on as dirt or devaluation.

If a coin is genuinely soiled, ask a dealer what you should do before taking any further action.

Handling and storage

Hold coins by the edges, never on the faces. Keep them in inert containers, such as coin flips, tubes, or capsules. That is much safer than leaving the coins loose in a container where they could rub against each other and leave scratches.

Additionally, avoid PVC-based plastics. These break down over time and leave a green residue that damages the surface.

For meaningful quantities, consider whether a segregated, insured depository makes more sense than a drawer.

The Short Version

A silver dollar is a U.S. one-dollar coin struck in silver, and only some U.S. dollar coins qualify. Everything from 1935 and before carries a 90 percent silver content at 0.7734 troy ounces. The one exception is the Trade dollar, which contains slightly more silver at 0.7874 troy ounces.

Circulating dollar coins from 1971 forward contain no silver, with the narrow exception of the San Francisco 40 percent silver Eisenhower issues. The https://www.moneymetals.com/buy/silver/coins/american-silver-eagle";>American Silver Eagle carries a full ounce of .999 fine silver and is the only one of them eligible for an IRA.

If you are converting dollars into ounces, do the per-ounce math first. Rounds and bars will usually win. If you want a piece of American monetary history that also happens to contain roughly fifty dollars of silver, a silver dollar should satisfy perfectly. It will tell you something every time you look at it about what a dollar was supposed to be.

Money Metals stocks Morgan and Peace silver dollars, 90% junk silver, generic rounds and bars, and American Silver Eagles, with live pricing on every product page. https://www.moneymetals.com/silver-price";>See today’s silver dollar prices.

Try That With Paper Money! 2,000-Year-Old Roman Coins Stand the Test of Time

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:00:00 EST

Here’s a question for you.

If you were alive 2,000 years from now and dug up an old box of $100 bills, do you think you could spend it anywhere?

I’m going to guess no.

In the first place, it’s highly unlikely paper money would last 2,000 years underground. It would mold and deteriorate. If the box was compromised, animals and insects might even chew up the bills. Remember how https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2026/09/04/if-rats-can-eat-your-money-its-probably-not-good-money-005184";>rats ate money that drug lord Pablo Escobar’s people stashed in walls? That paper didn’t last a decade, much less 1,000 years.

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Paper doesn’t stand the test of time – kind of like the value of any fiat currency.

And that leads to the second issue. I would be shocked if the U.S. existed in 2,000 years, at least not in the same way it does now. Without a backing government, U.S. fiat money would be worthless. It would be kind of like finding a box of old Confederate money that survived the Civil War. Sure, it would have some historical value. But you couldn’t take it to Walmart and buy a trinket.

Contrast that with Roman denarii. If I dug up a box of those silver coins, they would be in virtually the same condition they were in when they were buried, with perhaps a bit of tarnish.

And I could immediately go and spend one of those silver coins. They might not take it at Walmart, but I guarantee I could quickly find someone who would accept the denarii.

Because silver has value, and virtually everybody in the world knows it.

That’s why I find these treasure discoveries so fascinating. It boggles my mind that 2,000-year-old money is as valuable as it was the day it was buried. Silver and gold stand the test of time.

I ran across an article this week about an amateur archeologist in Germany who found a trove of silver coins in a field.

Oliver Riedl found several Roman denarii and realized he was onto something big when his metal detector kept beeping. He called in help, and a group of experts unearthed 934 denarii.

That was quite a fortune in its day. Historians say a Roman soldier earned around 300 denarii per year, with about half withheld for food and equipment. So, the horde in Germany represented about 6 years of take-home pay.

Do you know what’s cool?

I can figure out the purchasing power of those coins today with a few simple calculations.

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According to https://apnews.com/article/germany-roman-silver-coins-hoard-a0d3d4b13afb3595ce7c475f9a016d2c"; target="_blank" rel="noopener">the AP report, the haul of coins weighed 6.8 pounds. That converts to about 99 troy ounces.

According to archeologists, the coins dated to the reign of Roman Emperor Hadrian. Roman coins minted in that era were about 80 percent silver. That means the stash of denarii contains a little over 79.2 ounces of silver.

This morning, https://www.moneymetals.com/silver-price";>silver was $65.47 per ounce, making the melt value of our denarii around $5,185.

In other words, I could theoretically buy over $5,000 worth of stuff just with the silver contained in those nearly 2,000-year-old coins.

Now, consider again what you might be able to buy with paper dollars in 2,000 years.

Let’s imagine you found $5,000 in cash 2,000 years from now. Somehow, the paper survived all those years, and the U.S. government was still around to back the money. I imagine that $5,000 would buy you about 0.0000000000001 cent worth of stuff, given the rate of monetary debasement. Heck, $5,000 buried 50 years ago would only purchase $859.75 today.

I think I’d rather have the Roman denarii.

One of Aristotle’s four characteristics of good money is durability. In other words, money must stand the test of time. It can’t break down, rot, or corrode easily.

Silver fits the bill.

Paper – not so much.

And you can’t print silver.

That means governments can’t devalue silver money by printing more. They have to dilute the metal's purity. In fact, that’s exactly what Roman emperors did. In the Empire’s waning years, the denarii's purity fell as low as 50 percent.

The moral of this story: get real money if you want to preserve your wealth over time. Gold and silver will not rust, corrode, mold, degrade, or be printed into worthlessness by the government!

How Much Gold Is Mined Each Year - Record 3,672 Tonnes of Global Gold Production in 2025 - Top Producing Countries, Reserves Left to Mine, and Why Sources Disagree - Money Metals

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 EST

Quick Answer: Gold miners produced 3,672 tonnes of gold in 2025, or about 118.1 million troy ounces, which set a record. Adding recycled metal brings total gold supply to 5,002 tonnes.

The world mines much less gold than many people assume. Even with the record setting gold production of 2025, that output is not enough to make a significant increase in gold supply.

That matters for gold investors, because it shows that the gold supply really is tight. It also explains something that surprises new buyers: a big jump in mining output does almost nothing to the gold price. Below, you will learn the leading producing nations for gold, current figures, and the reason so many websites quote a number that is wrong.

How Much Gold Is Mined Each Year, In Tonnes and Ounces

Here is what the world produced in 2025, the most recent full year on record.

Supply source	Tonnes	Troy ounces
Mine production	3,672	118.1 million
Recycled gold	1,404	45.1 million
Total gold supply	5,002	160.8 million

Mine production rose about 1% from 2024, which is a smaller gain than many expect when they hear the word “record.” Output has been close to flat since 2016, and while miners have added a few percent in good years. In short, nothing resembling a surge has happened in two decades.

Recycled gold makes up the remainder of the supply portion. Old jewelry, scrap, and coins get melted down and refined each year. That volume very closely tracks the price. When gold rallies, more people sell their scrap, which is why recycling rose another 3% in 2025.

What a Year of Gold Production Actually Looks Like

Gold is dense enough that a tonne of it takes up remarkably little room. This is why the annual figure often sounds a lot larger than it looks.

Stack all 3,672 tonnes from 2025 into a single block and you get a cube roughly 5.75 meters on each side. That comes out to roughly 19 feet.

To give a more direct comparison, that is smaller than a two-car garage. And yet, that represents an entire year of global effort across thousands of mines.

Do the same with every ounce ever mined and the cube grows to about 22.6 meters per side. That is roughly 74 feet. All the gold in human history would still fit comfortably on a tennis court, with room to walk around it.

Why Sources Disagree on Annual Gold Production

This question produces all sorts of results online. That fact alone is somewhat surprising for a statistic that is so closely tracked. Here is what the top-ranking pages say right now.

Source	Annual production claimed	What it actually measures
https://www.gold.org/goldhub/research/gold-demand-trends/gold-demand-trends-full-year-2025/supply";>World Gold Council	3,672 tonnes (2025)	Mine production, current year
https://natural-resources.canada.ca/minerals-mining/mining-data-statistics-analysis/minerals-metals-facts/gold-facts";>Natural Resources Canada	3,300 tonnes (2024)	Mine production, earlier estimate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_mining";>Wikipedia	4,000 to 5,000 tonnes	Unclear, likely total supply
Various dealer sites	2,500 to 3,000 tonnes	Old figures, never updated

Four things explain the spread, and once you know them the disagreement stops looking mysterious.

Reporting lag. Agencies publish early estimates and revise them upward as company filings arrive. A figure for last year can sit several hundred tonnes low for months before the final data lands.

Different scope. Some sources count only what comes out of the ground. Others fold in recycled metal worth another 1,400 tonnes. A few leave out artisanal and small-scale mining entirely, even though that sector produces a meaningful share of world output.

Unit confusion. Metric tonnes, short tons, and troy ounces all get loosely called "tons" in casual writing, and a metric tonne is about 10% heavier than a short ton. Careless conversion alone can swing a figure by hundreds of tonnes.

Stale content. Plenty of articles were written years ago and never revisited. A page quoting 2,500 tonnes is reporting data from before 2010 without telling you so.

The defensible answer today is straightforward: mine output is running near 3,700 tonnes a year, and total supply including recycling sits close to 5,000 tonnes.

Which Countries Mine the Most Gold

Every inhabited continent has gold mining operations. No single country comes close to controlling the market. The top five producers are the ones most people can name, but these actually matter a lot less than you might expect.

Rank	Country	2025 mine production
1	China	380 tonnes
2	Russia	310 tonnes
3	Australia	280 tonnes
4	Canada	200 tonnes
5	United States	160 tonnes

Those five countries together account for just 41% of world output. The remainder is spread across dozens of nations, including Ghana, Mexico, Peru, Indonesia, and Uzbekistan.

That decentralization is genuinely good news for buyers. Compare gold to platinum, where South Africa supplies most of the world. A single strike or policy change there can choke the market. Gold has no equivalent chokepoint, which is one reason its supply has never collapsed in a way that traps holders.

How Much Gold Is Mined in the United States Each Year?

The United States produced 160 tonnes in 2025. At the end of 2025, that gold hoard was worth approximately $22.32 billion. That output came from more than 40 lode mines across 12 states. That is in addition to placer operations in Alaska and the western states.

Two states do nearly all of the work. Nevada accounts for about 64% of domestic output and Alaska adds another 22%. Together, those two states alone amount to nearly 86% of the country’s entire mining output.

American production actually slipped from 163 tonnes in 2024, but the value of that output rose 32%. The gold price climbed far faster than volumes fell.

How Much Gold is Left to Mine

Roughly 222,600 tonnes of gold have been mined across all of human history, according to the https://www.gold.org/goldhub/data/how-much-gold";>World Gold Council. At current prices that stock is worth about $29 trillion, and two-thirds of it came out of the ground after 1950.

According to the USGS, there are still about 66,000 tonnes known to remain underground. Broader estimates run close to 132,000 tonnes.

The "15 Years of Gold Left" Myth

Divide 66,000 tonnes of reserves by 3,672 tonnes of annual production and you get 18 years. That is exactly the kind of math that produces those panicked headlines you’ll see about an upcoming gold extinction.

The math is right. The conclusion, however, is not.

A reserve is gold that can be extracted profitably under today’s prices and costs. In contrast, a resource is gold we know exists but cannot yet mine at a profit. The boundary between the two categories moves constantly.

When prices rise, deposits that were once too low-grade to touch become economic. They migrate from resource to reserve. That reclassification is why global reserve estimates have stayed roughly flat for decades, even as miners extracted thousands of tonnes each year. The pool keeps refilling from the category above it.

Is Peak Gold Real?

Peak gold is the argument that annual output has topped out and will decline from here. There is some real evidence behind that, even though the doomsday proclamations overstate the case.

The World Gold Council points to several genuine pressures on future supply. New deposits are harder to find than they were a generation ago. Ore grades keep declining, so miners move more rock for less metal. Permitting timelines stretch longer each decade and capital costs keep climbing. Several of the most prospective regions also carry serious political risk.

Most forecasts for 2026 call for output to fall back from the 2025 record. Whether that marks the start of a genuine decline or just an ordinary year remains unsettled. However, nobody credible expects mine supply to surge.

Why Annual Mine Supply Barely Moves the Gold Price

This is the part that matters most if you already own gold or are deciding what to buy.

Each year of mining adds only about 1.6% to the gold that already exists above ground, because virtually every ounce ever produced is still with us. It sits in vaults, jewelry boxes, and central bank reserves rather than being consumed the way oil or copper is consumed.

That durability gives gold a stock-to-flow ratio near 60. The existing pile is roughly 60 times larger than the amount added each year. For most commodities that ratio sits close to 1. That is because this year’s production essentially is the market.

The https://www.gold.org/goldhub/gold-focus/2026/03/you-asked-we-answered-are-we-running-out-gold";>World Gold Council's own modeling puts a figure on the relationship: every 25-tonne change in supply moves the gold price by roughly 1%. Even a 200-tonne production jump, which no analyst is forecasting, would pull the price down by single digits at most.

Demand does the heavy lifting instead. Central banks alone have purchased close to 1,000 tonnes a year in recent years. That absorbs about a quarter of all mine output before any other buyer gets a chance. Investment, jewelry, and technology demand then compete for what remains.

So when you watch the https://www.moneymetals.com/gold-price";>live gold price, you are watching a demand story. A https://www.moneymetals.com/gold-price-history";>long-term gold price chart shows the same thing: prices swing hard while the supply line barely moves.

What This Means If You Own or Buy Physical Gold

Mine supply is inelastic, which is the technical way of saying miners cannot ramp up quickly when demand spikes. A new mine typically takes 10 to 20 years to go from the time they get discovered until the first pour in a refinery. No amount of buying pressure conjures more metal in the short run.

When buyers rush in, two things give way instead. Premiums widen, sometimes sharply, because mints and refiners cannot keep pace with orders. No amount of buying pressure conjures more metal in the short run.

That pattern has repeated in every buying panic of the past 20 years. It reflects a bottleneck in minting and distribution, not a shortage in the ground.

The practical takeaway is about product selection rather than timing. Widely traded forms stay liquid and resell easily in any market:

https://www.moneymetals.com/buy/gold/bars";>Gold bars carry the lowest premiums per ounce, and the https://www.moneymetals.com/buy/gold/bars/1-oz-gold-bars";>1 oz size is the most common starting point.
https://www.moneymetals.com/buy/gold/coins";>Gold coins such as the https://www.moneymetals.com/buy/gold/american-gold-eagle";>American Gold Eagle are the easiest products to sell back to any dealer in the country.
https://www.moneymetals.com/buy/gold/fractionals";>Fractional gold costs more per ounce but gives you flexibility to sell in smaller increments.

The same logic applies inside a https://www.moneymetals.com/programs/iras";>precious metals IRA. The metal is identical and only the account structure changes. If you are weighing physical metal against mining equities, our comparison of https://www.moneymetals.com/investment/physical-gold-vs-gold-stocks";>physical gold versus gold stocks covers how differently the two respond to production news.

Trying to trade the production data is a losing game regardless. The figures get published twice a year, they get revised afterward, and they move the price by 1%. Owning quality metal at a fair premium beats forecasting mine output.

Frequently Asked Questions

Known reserves total roughly 66,000 tonnes, with broader resources estimated near 132,000 tonnes. The remaining reserve base equals about 30% of everything mined so far. That figure has held steady for decades because rising prices keep converting resources into reserves.

China leads current production at 380 tonnes a year, but South Africa holds the all-time record. Its Witwatersrand Basin has yielded a large share of all the gold ever mined. South African output has declined sharply from its mid-century peak.

American mines produced 160 tonnes in 2025, worth about $22 billion at the time, with Nevada supplying roughly 64% of the total and Alaska another 22%.

About 222,600 tonnes sit above ground against roughly 66,000 tonnes of known reserves. That means we have extracted close to 77% of the gold we currently know how to reach profitably.

Just under one troy ounce, or about 27 grams apiece. Owning a single https://www.moneymetals.com/buy/gold/coins";>1 oz gold coin puts you slightly above the global average, and https://www.moneymetals.com/measurement/how-many-grams-in-1-oz-of-gold";>knowing how ounces convert to grams helps when comparing products.

Recycling supplied 1,404 tonnes in 2025, up 3% from the prior year. That amounts to about 28% of total supply. Recycled volumes rise when prices rise, and that responsiveness softens supply shocks mining alone could not absorb.

Precious Metals News & Analysis - Gold News, Silver News from Money Metals Exchange

Peace Dollar Value - Value by Date, Mint Mark, and Grade - 1921 High Relief, 1928-P, and 1934-S Key Dates and What Dealers Pay - Money Metals

Peace Dollar Value Chart by Date and Mint Mark

Peace Dollar Specifications and Silver Content

How Much Silver Is in a Peace Dollar, and What That Silver Is Worth Today

When a Peace Dollar Stops Being a Collector Coin

Peace Dollar Melt Value Calculator

Which Peace Dollars Are Actually Worth Real Money

1921 High Relief

1928 Philadelphia

1934-S

1927-D, 1927-S, 1935-S, and the Other Semi-Keys

The 1964-D Peace Dollar: The One You Cannot Own

Why Your 1922 Peace Dollar Probably Isn't Rare

Where Is the Mint Mark on a Peace Dollar?

Is a Peace Dollar With No Mint Mark Rare?

1923, 1924, 1925, and 1926 Values

"IN GOD WE TRVST" - Is My Peace Dollar a Misspelling Error?

Peace Dollar Errors and Varieties Worth Checking For

Has My Coin Been Cleaned?

How to Grade a Peace Dollar Yourself

Is It Worth Paying to Have Your Peace Dollar Graded?

What a Dealer Will Actually Pay for Your Peace Dollars

Culls and Damaged Peace Dollars

Selling to a Coin Shop, an Online Dealer, or eBay

Peace Dollars as an Investment or as a Collection

Are Peace Dollars IRA-Eligible?

Taxes When You Sell

How to Spot a Counterfeit Peace Dollar

Should You Buy Raw or Certified?

Frequently Asked Questions

What year is the most valuable Peace dollar? http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"; viewbox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" class="size-5 shrink-0 transition" aria-hidden="true" x-bind:class="isExpanded ? 'rotate-180' : ''">

What is the melt value of a Peace dollar? http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"; viewbox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" class="size-5 shrink-0 transition" aria-hidden="true" x-bind:class="isExpanded ? 'rotate-180' : ''">

Is a 1922 Peace dollar 100% silver? http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"; viewbox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" class="size-5 shrink-0 transition" aria-hidden="true" x-bind:class="isExpanded ? 'rotate-180' : ''">

How much is a 1922-D Peace dollar worth? http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"; viewbox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" class="size-5 shrink-0 transition" aria-hidden="true" x-bind:class="isExpanded ? 'rotate-180' : ''">

How can you tell if a 1922 Peace dollar is rare? http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"; viewbox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" class="size-5 shrink-0 transition" aria-hidden="true" x-bind:class="isExpanded ? 'rotate-180' : ''">

What is a 1922 Peace dollar with no mint mark worth? http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"; viewbox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" class="size-5 shrink-0 transition" aria-hidden="true" x-bind:class="isExpanded ? 'rotate-180' : ''">

How do you tell a High Relief Peace dollar? http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"; viewbox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" class="size-5 shrink-0 transition" aria-hidden="true" x-bind:class="isExpanded ? 'rotate-180' : ''">

Are Peace dollars a good investment? http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"; viewbox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" class="size-5 shrink-0 transition" aria-hidden="true" x-bind:class="isExpanded ? 'rotate-180' : ''">

Peace dollar or Morgan dollar, which is worth more? http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"; viewbox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentColor" class="size-5 shrink-0 transition" aria-hidden="true" x-bind:class="isExpanded ? 'rotate-180' : ''">

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Silver Dollar Value - Silver Content and Melt Value of Every U.S. Dollar Coin - Morgan, Peace, Trade, Eisenhower, and Silver Eagle Types - Money Metals

What Counts as a Silver Dollar … and What Doesn't

The Three Eras of the U.S. Dollar Coin

Every U.S. Dollar Coin, By Composition

The Dollar Coins That Contain No Silver at All

How to Tell in Ten Seconds Whether Your Dollar Contains Silver

Step One: Read the Date

Step Two: The Eisenhower Exception Most Guides Get Wrong

Step Three: Weight, Diameter, and Edge

The Classic 90 Percent Silver Dollars, 1794–1935

Flowing Hair and Draped Bust, 1794–1804

Gobrecht Dollar, 1836–1839

Seated Liberty, 1840–1873

Trade Dollar, 1873–1885: The Heavy One

Morgan Dollar, 1878–1904 and 1921

Peace Dollar, 1921–1935

How Much Is a Silver Dollar Worth?

Why So Few Old Silver Dollars Survive: The Pittman Act

Modern Dollar Coins: Eisenhower, Anthony, Sacagawea, and the Silver Eagle

Eisenhower Dollar, 1971–1978

Susan B. Anthony, Sacagawea, Presidential, and American Innovation

American Silver Eagle, 1986–present

Silver Dollars Versus Other Ways to Buy Silver

What You Actually Pay Per Ounce

When a Silver Dollar is the Right Buy Anyway

Which Silver Dollars Can Go in an IRA