Silver Price History
Byline: Reviewed by the Silver Value Chart Editorial Team · Updated September 19, 2026
Silver price, 2000 to today
Longer ranges use weekly and monthly data, which does not capture spikes that began and ended inside a single bucket. Figures quoted in the text come from daily data and exchange statistics.
Data sources: Spot price via api.gold-api.com · COMEX futures (SI=F) via Yahoo Finance. Prices are for informational purposes only and may be delayed. Figures on this page were generated . Silver is quoted in US dollars per troy ounce.
Quick answer
Silver trades at $66.38 per troy ounce as of September 19, 2026. Our own price data begins in 2000, when silver traded under $5 an ounce. Over the past twelve months the highest daily close was $115.08 and the highest intraday print was $121.30 — two different measures that are often confused, and which we keep separate throughout this page.
A note on what "the high" means
Before any history, a definition, because this is where price-history pages usually go wrong.
Highest close is the highest price at which a trading day ended. It is what price charts plot, including ours, and it is the more conservative figure.
Intraday high is the highest price touched at any moment, even for seconds. It is always equal to or higher than the highest close, sometimes by a wide margin during volatile periods.
The gap is not trivial. Over the past year, silver's highest daily close was $115.08 while its highest intraday print was $121.30. Both are true. A page quoting one as "the all-time high" without saying which is giving you an incomplete answer.
A related trap, which we mention because it affects every long-range silver chart you will see: long charts are usually built from weekly or monthly data, and those samples miss short spikes entirely. Our own 25-year view is monthly, and a spike that began and ended inside one month simply is not in it. That is why the figures on this page come from daily data and exchange statistics rather than being read off the long chart.
The three great silver spikes
January 1980 — the Hunt brothers. Silver's most famous episode. The Hunt brothers, Texas oil heirs, accumulated an enormous silver position through the late 1970s, and the price rose from under $5 to a peak of roughly $50 an ounce in January 1980. Exchange rule changes restricting leveraged buying broke the position, and the price collapsed more than 50% within days — an event still called Silver Thursday. Silver did not approach that level again for thirty-one years.
April 2011 — the post-crisis run. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, with extensive monetary easing underway, silver ran from under $10 in 2008 to just under $50 in April 2011, briefly approaching the 1980 nominal peak. It then fell steadily for years, trading in the mid-teens for much of the late 2010s.
2025–2026 — the current era. Our own data shows silver at $41.71 in September 2025, rising to a highest daily close of $115.08 and an intraday print of $121.30 during the past year, before settling at today's $66.38. This is comfortably above both prior peaks in nominal terms.
An important caveat on comparing these. The 1980 and 2011 peaks are quoted in the dollars of their day. Adjusted for inflation, the 1980 peak in particular represents a far higher real price than its nominal figure suggests. Nominal all-time highs make better headlines than they do comparisons.
Silver by decade
Approximate ranges, for orientation rather than precision. Figures from 2000 onward come from our own dataset; earlier figures are cited from published market history.
| Period | Approximate range | What characterized it |
|---|---|---|
| 1970s | $1.50 → ~$50 | Inflation, the end of Bretton Woods, the Hunt accumulation |
| 1980s | ~$50 → $5 | The post-spike collapse and a long bear market |
| 1990s | $4 – $6 | A quiet decade; silver largely ignored |
| 2000s | $4 → $20 | The commodity supercycle begins |
| 2010–2011 | $15 → ~$50 | Post-crisis monetary easing |
| 2012–2019 | $30 → $14 | A long decline into a low, range-bound period |
| 2020–2024 | $12 → $30 | Pandemic disruption, then industrial demand growth |
| 2025–2026 | $41 → $66.38 | The current run |
Our dataset's own low is $4.13, recorded in November 2001 — a useful anchor for how far the metal has traveled.
What actually moves the silver price
Silver has two distinct sources of demand, and understanding the split explains most of its behavior.
Industrial demand — roughly half of total consumption. Silver is the most electrically and thermally conductive metal there is, which makes it genuinely difficult to substitute in electronics, brazing alloys, medical applications and photovoltaics. Solar in particular has grown into a major consumer. This half of demand tracks the economic cycle: it strengthens in expansions and weakens in recessions.
Monetary and store-of-value demand. The other half behaves more like gold, responding to currency strength, real interest rates and financial stress.
Because these two forces can push in opposite directions, silver behaves inconsistently relative to gold — see the gold to silver ratio. In a recession with financial stress, safe-haven buying supports silver while collapsing industrial demand drags it down.
Supply adds its own character. Most silver is produced as a by-product of mining copper, lead and zinc, not from dedicated silver mines. That means silver supply responds weakly to the silver price: a higher price does not quickly bring more metal out of the ground if the miners' primary product does not justify expanding.
And much of it is consumed. Industrial silver is frequently used in quantities too small to recover economically — a fraction of a gram in a connector. Unlike gold, where nearly everything ever mined still exists, a meaningful share of all silver ever produced has effectively been destroyed.
Volatility is the defining feature
Silver moves more than gold, in both directions, consistently.
Two structural reasons. Its market is far smaller by value, so a given flow of money moves the price further. And the industrial demand leg adds a cyclical driver gold does not have.
The practical consequence for anyone holding silver: the price you see today may differ markedly from the price a month from now, in either direction. Our chart shows a highest close of $115.08 and a low of $42.54 within the past twelve months alone — a range most assets would not produce in a decade. That is characteristic of silver rather than exceptional.
We note this as a factual description of the metal's behavior, not as guidance about what to do. Decisions about your own holdings warrant a licensed professional.
Related pages
Silver price today · Gold to silver ratio · Silver price per ounce · Where to buy silver
FAQ
What is the all-time high price of silver? It depends which measure and which period. Silver reached roughly $50 an ounce in January 1980 and again in April 2011 in nominal terms. Over the past twelve months our data shows a highest daily close of $115.08 and an intraday high of $121.30. Adjusted for inflation, the 1980 peak represents a considerably higher real price than its nominal figure suggests.
What was the lowest silver price? Within our dataset, $4.13 in November 2001. Silver traded lower in earlier decades.
Why did silver crash in 1980? The Hunt brothers' leveraged accumulation collapsed after exchanges changed the rules on margin and speculative positions. The price fell more than half within days.
How far back does your data go? To 2000 — daily in recent years, monthly further back. Earlier figures on this page are cited from published market history rather than from our own feed, and are labeled as approximate.
Is silver more volatile than gold? Yes, consistently. Its market is smaller by value and about half its demand is industrial and therefore tied to the economic cycle.
Data sources: Spot price via api.gold-api.com · COMEX futures (SI=F) via Yahoo Finance. Prices are for informational purposes only and may be delayed. Figures on this page were generated . Silver is quoted in US dollars per troy ounce.