Silver Price Chart: 30, 50 and 100 Years

By the Silver Market Chart editorial team · Updated November 10, 2026

Prices on this page as of November 10, 2026 at 22:40 UTC (spot quotes from gold-api.com).

Quick answer: In 1995, thirty years before the last full year, silver averaged $5.16 per troy ounce. In 2025 the average was $40.12, a change of +678% across those three decades, and the spot price today is $51.66 (November 10, 2026). Since 1900, the lowest annual average was $0.28 in 1932 and the highest full-year average was $40.12 in 2025.

Silver price chart: 20, 30, 50 and 100+ years

20 years30 years50 yearsSince 1900Since 1900, 1998 dollars

Annual averages: annual averages, U.S. Geological Survey Data Series 140 until 2001, then the mean of each year's daily futures closes; the current year is year to date. The 1998-dollar line is USGS's own inflation-adjusted column and stops at 2021. Worst gap between the two sources in the years they overlap: 1.5%.

What the tabs and the toggle show

The chart opens on the 30-year view and offers three more: 20 years, 50 years, and everything since 1900. Each point is one calendar year's average price, so a single spike lasting a few weeks shows up as a bump rather than a needle. That choice suits a long chart. Daily data over a century would be a dense scribble, and the question most readers bring here is how the level has shifted from decade to decade, not what happened on a given Tuesday.

The changes between the anchor years, all comparing annual averages with 2025's:

• 10 years: from $15.66 in 2015, a change of +156%
• 20 years: from $7.32 in 2005, a change of +448%
• 30 years: from $5.16 in 1995, a change of +678%
• 50 years: from $4.42 in 1975, a change of +808%
• 100 years: from $0.69 in 1925, a change of +5,714%

Those percentages are in nominal dollars, the dollars printed on the price tag at the time. A dollar in 1925 bought far more than a dollar does now, so the nominal line overstates how much silver has gained in purchasing power. That is what the toggle is for. Switch it to 1998 dollars and the chart plots USGS's own inflation-adjusted column, which restates each year's price in the value of a 1998 dollar. That column ends in 2021, the last year of the USGS series we use, so the adjusted line stops there. We don't extend it with an inflation index of our own, because mixing two methods would make the line look more precise than it is.

Flip between the two views and the shape changes. In nominal terms the recent years tower over everything before them. In 1998 dollars, the tallest year in the whole USGS series is 1980, and much of the 20th century looks like a long, uneven plateau.

Decade by decade

The decade table condenses the annual series into one row per decade: the first year's average, the last year's average, and the years with the highest and lowest averages inside the decade. Read down the "high year" column and you'll see that peaks cluster in a handful of decades, while long stretches pass with the price drifting inside a narrow band. Every cell comes from the same annual data that draws the chart; nothing in it is typed by hand.

To see every individual year rather than one row per decade, use the silver price by year table, which lists each average from 1900 to the present with its change from the year before.

The episodes you can see on the chart

Four stretches stand out on the long line. We describe them here using the chart's own annual data; the reasons behind each are summarized plainly, and the events with their own pages are linked.

The 1960s: the end of the flat line

For the first six decades of the century the annual line barely moves, staying under two dollars an ounce in nominal terms; the annual table shows how little changed from one year to the next. During the 1960s that stillness ends and the line begins to climb. This page sticks to what the USGS figures show: US silver policy changed in that decade, but we have not yet sourced a primary record of those changes, so the explanation stays general here rather than borrowing dates we can't cite.

1980: the spike and the fall

The sharpest peak on the century chart sits at 1980. The price climbed through 1979, peaked early in 1980, and then fell hard. Much of that run was tied to two Texas brothers who had built an enormous position in silver futures and physical metal, and to the exchange rule changes that ended it; the full account, from primary records, is on the page about the Hunt brothers' silver squeeze. Because the chart uses annual averages, the 1980 point is lower than the brief peak traded that January. In USGS's 1998-dollar column, 1980 remains the highest year of the series.

2011: the first modern peak

The feed years after 2001 climb steadily, and 2011's annual average was the highest of them up to that point. The decline that followed lasted several years, and the line spent most of the late 2010s far below that level. Plenty of explanations for the 2011 peak circulate; we haven't sourced one well enough to print, so this section stays with the data, and the annual table lets you trace how long the retreat lasted.

2026: a record, then a long retreat

Silver's highest daily high on record came on January 29, 2026, when COMEX futures traded at $121.30. The price has since fallen 57.5% below that peak. On this chart, 2026 appears as a year-to-date point labelled as such, so its position will shift until the year closes. The sequence of events behind the fall, with each source and date, is on the page explaining why the silver price is dropping.

Log scale versus linear scale on a century chart

The since-1900 view is drawn on a logarithmic scale, and the axis says so. On a linear scale, equal vertical distances mean equal dollar amounts. Over a century in which the price has risen many times over, that squashes the whole first half of the chart into a flat line near zero, and the recent years fill the frame.

A log scale fixes this by making equal vertical distances mean equal percentage changes. A move from one dollar to two takes up as much height as a move from twenty to forty, because both are a doubling. That lets you compare a 1960s rise with a 2020s rise fairly. The trade-off is that recent dollar moves look smaller than they felt in real time. The guide on how to read a silver price chart explains linear and log scales, candles and ranges in more detail.

Data note: where these numbers come from

Two sources are joined on this chart, and the seam between them is marked.

Up to 2021, the annual values come from USGS Data Series 140, the agency's historical statistics for silver. USGS reports a unit value in dollars per metric ton; we divide by 32,150.7466, the number of troy ounces in a metric ton, to get dollars per ounce. USGS rounds to three significant figures, so early-century values carry that rounding.

From 2001, the first complete calendar year in our market feed, each year's value is the mean of the daily closing prices of COMEX front-month silver futures. Where the two sources overlap, we compare them year by year, and the build fails if any year differs by more than five percent. The largest gap found is 1.5%. A dotted line on the chart marks where one source hands over to the other.

The current year is a year-to-date average and is labelled that way. Prices are in US dollars per troy ounce throughout. The 1998-dollar line is USGS's own column and is not extended past 2021.

What a long chart can't tell you

A century of prices can't tell you what silver does next. Past peaks were followed by long declines and past lows by recoveries, but the timing and size were different every time, and the forces behind them were different too. The chart also can't show what you would have earned: it ignores dealer premiums, storage, and the income you'd have given up by holding metal instead of something that pays interest. Use the long view for context, not as a forecast.

Information, not financial advice. We do not tell you to buy or sell and we do not predict prices. Figures are reference numbers as of the time shown.

Before you request anything, our page on Augusta Precious Metals lists what Augusta states about itself and who that minimum suits. For today's price with every range from one month up, return to the silver market price chart, or open today's market price in the card at the top of the homepage.

Questions about silver's long-term price

Keep reading

• the annual table: every year's average since 1900, with its change from the year before.
• Silver Thursday: what happened in 1980, told from primary records.
• the 2026 fall: the dated events behind this year's retreat from the record.