The first chart switches between the common look-back windows: 1 day (the 24-hour silver chart), 1 month, 3 months, 12 months, 5 years and all available history. Hover to read the price on any date. The second chart shows the long-run record in monthly candles. In the chart settings, switch the price scale to logarithmic. On a log scale a move from $5 to $10 looks as large as one from $25 to $50, which is the fair way to compare eras.
Need a year-to-date (YTD) or six-month view? Open the second chart's date-range menu at the bottom and choose YTD or 6M, or switch the interval to daily. For today's figure in grams, kilos or another currency, use the silver price today page.
Major highs and lows in modern silver history
Prices below are approximate US-dollar spot levels per troy ounce, rounded, and not adjusted for inflation.
| Date | Event | Approx. price |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 1980 | Hunt brothers' squeeze and high inflation drive a record peak | ~$50 |
| Mar 1980 | "Silver Thursday": COMEX margin rule changes break the squeeze | ~$11 |
| Early 1990s | Two-decade bear market bottoms amid low inflation and surplus supply | below $4 |
| Apr 2011 | Post-crisis quantitative easing and investor demand retest the 1980 peak | ~$49 |
| Dec 2015 | Strong dollar and rising-rate expectations end a four-year slide | ~$14 |
| Mar 2020 | Pandemic liquidation: the lowest price in over a decade | under $12 |
| Aug 2020 | Stimulus and record ETF inflows more than double the March low | ~$29 |
| 2024 | Silver breaks above $30 for the first time since 2012 | $30+ |
| 2025 | Supply deficits and investment demand finally carry silver through the $50 ceiling | $50+ |
| Jan 2026 | A parabolic run peaks at a new all-time high, followed by a sharp correction | above $110 |
The rally that began in 2025 more than doubled the old $50 ceiling by January 2026 before a steep pullback, a reminder of how violently silver can overshoot in both directions. The background is covered in the silver price outlook for 2026. The live charts above always show the latest levels.
What the long-run chart teaches
Silver moves in long regimes. The long-term chart splits into a few distinct eras: the inflationary 1970s spike, a roughly twenty-year bear market, the 2001–2011 bull run, a grinding 2011–2020 decline, and the post-2020 advance that turned into the 2025–26 blow-off. Moves inside each regime look dramatic on a daily chart but rarely change the direction of the regime.
Round numbers act as ceilings for years. The $50 area capped silver in 1980 and again in 2011, so for more than four decades it was the level every silver chart was measured against. Levels like this matter because enough traders watch them. How to read a silver chart covers support, resistance and the moving averages traders use to judge them.
Silver falls harder than gold. In each major decline since 1980, silver lost a larger share of its value than gold did. It has also usually risen faster in the late stages of a rally. That higher beta is why the gold/silver ratio swings so widely, from below 20 in 1980 to above 120 in March 2020.
Inflation-adjusted, the picture changes. The 1980 peak of about $50 is roughly four times that in today's money. A new nominal record can still be well below the 1980 high in real terms. Silver and inflation looks at how well silver has actually tracked consumer prices.
Before 1970: silver as money
For most of history silver's price was not set by a free market but by law. Under the US Coinage Act of 1792, gold was worth fifteen times its weight in silver. Governments bought and minted silver at fixed rates until the 1870s demonetization, and the US Treasury kept silver near $1.29 an ounce until the 1960s. That is why US dimes, quarters and halves stopped containing silver after 1964. The full story, from ancient coinage to the Hunt brothers, is in the history of silver as money.
Frequently asked questions
What was the highest silver price before 2025?
Silver twice peaked near $50 an ounce: in January 1980, during the Hunt brothers episode, and in April 2011, after the financial crisis. It did not decisively break above that level until the 2025 rally.
What was the lowest silver price in recent decades?
Silver traded below $4 an ounce in the early 1990s. The low of the last decade came in March 2020, when the pandemic sell-off briefly pushed it under $12.
Is silver above its 1980 high after inflation?
The January 1980 peak of about $50 is roughly four times that in today's dollars once US consumer-price inflation is taken into account, so on an inflation-adjusted basis silver has usually traded well below its 1980 high.
More silver charts
- Silver price today: live per ounce, gram and kilo, with a melt-value calculator
- Silver price charts: XAG/USD, gold, SLV, GLD and silver in major currencies
- Full-screen TradingView silver chart with drawing tools
- XAU/USD and XAG/USD spot with the gold/silver ratio
Charts are provided by TradingView. Historical levels are rounded approximations for context. Nothing here is investment advice; see our full Disclaimer.
Last reviewed on September 26, 2026.