The Price of Silver in the Past and Today

I haven't written anything for #silvegolstackers in a long time. And I had no idea what to write about. I was randomly going through my coins. After a while, an idea came to me. Hopefully it will be of interest to someone.

Emperor Franz I of Austria ruled many countries between 1792 and 1835. Some countries were taken from him by Napoleon Bonaparte, the greatest loss was the Austrian Netherlands, which later became Belgium. But if I started writing about history, there would be no time for coins.

Some of Francis' countries had different monetary systems than most of his empire. One such example was the Lombard-Venetian kingdom in northern Italy.

I present these coins:
1 lira, 1824, diameter 22 mm, weight 4.331 g of silver, purity 900/1000
1/2 lira, 1823, diameter 18 mm, weight 2.165 g of silver, purity 900/1000
1/4 lira, 1822, diameter 16 mm, weight 1.624 g of silver, purity 600/1000
1 Centesimo, 1822, diameter 18 mm, weight 1.75 g of copper

And for comparison, the size of the current 1 euro cent. One and two cents are not used at all in Europe for cash payments. Rounding up.(Although my country is a member of the European Union, it does not pay with the euro. We have crowns.)

I'm all about the size and weight of the coin. What would you buy today for 4, 2 and 1 grams of pure silver? Would it be worth minting such small coins? Not much. Nothing.

But then such coins were commonly minted. (I deliberately chose coins from the period 1822-1824.) Their minting and use were worthwhile. How is this possible?

The value and price of silver then was much higher than today. That is, compared to the price of labour then.

The Industrial Revolution was just beginning to affect life in England. It had not yet taken hold in the rest of the world. Man used only the power of his muscles, or animals, water and wind. Only so much food was produced that it was barely enough to feed the population of the time.

Then the industrial revolution entered all of Europe and gradually the rest of the world.
Just for the record:
1750 ... 500 million people on planet Earth
1850 ... 1 billion people on planet Earth
1930 ... 2 billion people on planet Earth
1975 ... 4 billion people on planet Earth
2023 ... 8 billion people on planet Earth

Humanity has learned to use other sources of energy - fossil fuels, nuclear.

What used to be expensive (metals, products) is now cheaper. What was cheap (human labour, natural raw materials) is now more and more expensive. What paid off before does not pay off today. And vice versa.

What happens next? Do these thoughts of mine make any sense? Can we infer from them that the price of metals will continue to fall as time goes on? History says so.

According to general logic, it should be the other way around. The more people there are, the smaller each person's share of all the resources on the planet should be.

So. Will the price of gold and silver rise over time or not? That's what every Silvegoldstacker wants to know.

I freely admit I don't know. These are the thoughts that come to mind when I look at my coins.