Silver Price History: Monthly Average in USD Since 1960 (World Bank Data)
Silver price history monthly data in USD per troy ounce since 1960, sourced from the World Bank Commodity Markets Outlook (Pink Sheet). 65 years of monetary and industrial silver cycles in a single continuous time series.
Silver price history combines two distinct demand sources, monetary hedging and industrial consumption, which makes silver more volatile than gold and more cyclically sensitive than copper alone. This dataset provides the monthly average silver price in USD per troy ounce since 1960, sourced from the World Bank Commodity Markets Outlook (Pink Sheet). Over 65 years of silver price history allow comparison of monetary, industrial, and supply-driven regimes within a single continuous time series.
Dataset: Silver Price, Monthly Average, USD (1960–2026) · Updated 2026-09-01
Data provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy or timeliness. Check any figure against the primary source cited on this page before using it. Terms: legal notice.
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Source: World Bank, Commodity Markets Outlook (Pink Sheet)
Macro Takeaway
Silver price history reflects a dual driver structure. On the monetary side, silver tracks gold during currency debasement episodes — the 1970s inflation, the post-2008 quantitative easing cycle, and the post-2020 stimulus phase all triggered silver rallies that lagged gold by three to twelve months. On the industrial side, silver demand from photovoltaics, electronics, and automotive electrification creates a procyclical component absent from gold, which is why silver typically falls harder than gold during recessions and outperforms during synchronized industrial expansions.
Two cross-references frame silver price moves. First, the gold/silver ratio — about 66 on average since 1980 in this series and about 30 before, with peaks above 100 marking maximum gold preference (recessions, financial crises) and troughs below 40 marking silver outperformance (late-cycle commodity rallies); see the copper price for the industrial counterpoint. Second, the trade-weighted dollar (DTWEXBGS) — silver, like all dollar-denominated commodities, mechanically reprices against dollar strength independently of any change in physical fundamentals.
Dataset Overview
| Indicator | Silver Price: Monthly Average, USD (1960–2026) |
|---|---|
| Geography | Global (USD per troy ounce) |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Period | 1960–2026 |
| Variables | date, silver_price_usd |
| Format | CSV, Excel (XLSX) |
| Sources | World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet) |
| Last updated | 2026-09-01 |
Dataset Variables
The CSV and Excel files contain the following columns.
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
date | Date (YYYY-MM-DD) | First day of month |
silver_price_usd | Float | Monthly average silver price (USD per troy ounce) |
Column names match the CSV headers exactly.
Download the Complete Dataset
The full dataset is available in CSV and Excel formats.
Data provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy or timeliness. Check any figure against the primary source cited on this page before using it. Terms: legal notice.
Direct CSV Access: Eco3min Structured Dataset
https://eco3min.fr/dataset/silver-price.csv
This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool.
Using the Dataset in Python
import pandas as pd url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/silver-price.csv" df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"]) print(df.head()) print(df.describe())
Using the Dataset in R
library(readr) url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/silver-price.csv" df <- read_csv(url) head(df) summary(df)
Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL, no download or API key required.
Methodology
The monthly average silver price in USD per troy ounce is sourced from the World Bank Commodity Markets Outlook (CMO), a public dataset published monthly by the World Bank’s Development Economics Prospects Group. The series aggregates daily spot quotations from major precious metal exchanges (with London market quotations as the primary reference) into a calendar-month arithmetic mean, smoothing intraday volatility while preserving the underlying trend.
The data is published by the World Bank under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence: redistribution is allowed, attribution to the World Bank is required. Eco3min mirrors the CMO Pink Sheet release with first-of-month timestamps and consistent column naming. The series is well suited for long-horizon structural analysis but not for intraday or daily trading work, which requires LBMA daily fixings or futures market data.
Data Quality & Provider Notes
The World Bank Pink Sheet is the standard reference for long-horizon commodity series in academic and policy work. The monthly cadence makes it less suitable for short-term analysis but ideal for regime classification and structural cycle work.
- Release latency. The World Bank publishes the Pink Sheet on the second business day of each month, covering the previous month. Eco3min refreshes the dataset on a weekly pipeline cadence (Saturday 08:00 UTC).
- Revisions policy. Monthly averages are calculated post hoc and are not revised after publication. The historical series since 1960 is stable.
- Alternative sources. The LBMA publishes a daily London Silver Price benchmark from auction-based fixings. Bloomberg, Refinitiv (LSEG), and the Silver Institute publish alternative aggregates with similar long-term levels but daily granularity. COMEX SI futures (front-month contract on CME) provide the deepest liquidity reference for derivative-based analysis.
- Known gaps. No gaps in the monthly series since 1960. Pre-1960 data is available from secondary sources (Historical Statistics of the United States, USGS) but is not part of this series.
Users analyzing silver price history for structural research can rely on this series directly; users needing intraday or daily granularity should pair it with LBMA daily fixings or COMEX SI futures.
Common Pitfalls When Using This Silver Price Series
Silver price history is widely cited but four recurring interpretation errors distort the signal.
- Confusing the data source. Users often conflate this World Bank Pink Sheet monthly series with the LBMA Silver Price, with COMEX futures settlements, and with the SLV ETF NAV. Each measures something slightly different — the World Bank average smooths intraday volatility, the LBMA Silver Price is a single daily auction price set at noon in London, futures embed contango/backwardation, and the ETF can trade at premium/discount during physical scarcity.
- Monetary vs industrial demand drivers. A common mistake is interpreting every silver rally as a monetary hedge signal. In practice, over half of silver end-use demand is industrial (photovoltaics, electronics, brazing alloys). Cyclical industrial demand can drive prices independently of any monetary regime, and the energy transition has structurally shifted the demand mix since 2020.
- Gold/silver ratio without regime context. The ratio is often quoted as a mean-reverting indicator, but its long-term mean has shifted: it averaged about 30 before 1980 and about 66 since, and monthly readings topped 100 in spring 2020 and again in May 2025. Comparing a 2025 reading to a 1970s reading without regime adjustment misleads.
- Spot vs futures vs ETF divergence during stress. During physical scarcity episodes (2008, March 2020, January–February 2021 retail squeeze), spot, futures, and the SLV ETF diverged as paper-physical arbitrage broke down. A monthly average masks these stress events visible only in daily granularity.
Historical Regimes
1960–1970: Bretton Woods stability. Silver price held between $0.90 and $1.30/oz from 1960 to 1966 as the monetary order suppressed precious metal volatility, before a jump to $2.50 in June 1968. The US Treasury still held large silver inventories from the 1934 Silver Purchase Act, capping upside, and the demonetization of silver coinage in 1965 (Coinage Act) freed up structural supply.
1971–1980: Monetary regime change. Nixon’s closure of the gold window in August 1971 and the subsequent inflation triggered the most violent silver price appreciation on record. Silver’s monthly average rose from $1.60 in August 1971 to $38.90 in January 1980, a roughly 24-fold move driven by Hunt brothers cornering attempts and fiat-debasement hedging. The peak coincided with US CPI inflation above 14% and the Volcker tightening cycle.
1981–2003: Long disinflation bear market. Silver price collapsed from its January 1980 peak to below $5 as Volcker’s monetary tightening, dollar strength, and industrial substitution (photography moving toward digital, lower silver content in alloys) crushed both monetary and industrial demand. The two-decade bear coincided with falling WTI crude oil prices and a strong dollar regime.
2004–2011: Commodity supercycle. Silver price rallied from under $6 in 2004 to $42.70 in April 2011 alongside the broader commodity boom. The 2008 GFC interrupted the rally briefly, but QE1 and QE2 fueled a second leg that pushed the monthly average above its January 1980 level, a near-double-top with the 1980 peak on daily prices. Industrial demand from emerging Asian economies amplified the monetary tailwind from balance-sheet expansion.
2012–2020: Range-bound consolidation. After the 2011 peak, silver price spent seven years, from mid-2013 to mid-2020, between $14 and $25. Dollar strength, weak commodity sentiment, and the absence of acute inflation kept silver capped despite expanding central bank balance sheets. The pandemic stimulus broke the range in mid-2020.
2021–present: Inflation and reshoring cycle. Post-COVID stimulus, supply chain disruption, and the energy transition (solar panel demand) lifted silver to a record monthly average of $92.10 in January 2026, well above the 1980 and 2011 peaks. The cross-reference with WTI crude and the trade-weighted dollar helps distinguish whether silver moves are monetary (dollar weakness) or industrial (energy transition, manufacturing reshoring).
Related Macroeconomic Datasets
Silver sits at the intersection of monetary and industrial commodity cycles. Cross-referencing with the dollar index, oil, and copper helps isolate whether silver moves are driven by currency debasement, commodity inflation, or industrial demand. For how a different commodity class follows its own cycles, see our analysis of agricultural commodity cycles.
- US Dollar Index (DTWEXBGS): Trade-weighted dollar; inverse relationship with silver since the 1971 monetary regime change
- WTI Crude Oil Price: Energy is the largest commodity complex by market value; silver and oil cycles correlate during inflation regimes
- Brent Crude Oil Price: Global oil benchmark for cross-checking the inflation transmission channel
- Real WTI Crude Oil Price (CPI-adjusted): Strips inflation from oil to isolate real demand pressure on commodities broadly
- Natural Gas Price (Henry Hub): Energy complex cross-reference for the industrial demand component
- Copper Price History: Industrial metal benchmark; the gold/silver/copper triangle frames the precious-industrial split
Macroeconomic Dataset Hub
This dataset is part of the Eco3min macro-financial data repository.
Explore the Eco3min Dataset Hub
Sources
- World Bank: Commodity Markets Outlook (Pink Sheet)
- LBMA: London Silver Price (alternative daily reference)
- Silver Institute: Annual World Silver Survey (demand-side breakdown)
Dataset Reference
Last updated — 15 October 2026
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Source terms. World Bank data (Commodity Price Data, The Pink Sheet), licensed by the World Bank under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) with the additional terms of the World Bank Terms of Use for Datasets (https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/legal/terms-conditions/datasets). Attribution to the World Bank is required and must be passed on with any redistribution. Eco3min grants no licence of its own on these data, and no endorsement by the World Bank is implied. Full terms.