There is a metal older than coinage itself. Older than the Roman Republic. Older than the Greek city-states. Older, in its monetary function, than every financial instrument the modern world has invented. It funded the navy that defeated Persia at Salamis. It paid the legions that built the Colosseum. Spanish galleons sank under its weight. American cowboys counted it as change. For five thousand years, silver was not merely an investment — it was money. The base currency of civilisation. The metal that conducted not just electricity, but commerce, empire, and survival. Then, in the second half of the twentieth ... (full story)