While all coins and banknotes have lost their purchasing power over time, this has not been the case for coins containing precious metal.
Today’s content can be applied to all the world’s currencies, but for convenience let’s take the case of the Italian lira (ITL), our old and much-loved currency.
I selected 6 gold and silver coins (which were actually used to pay back then) to compare their value yesterday and today with that of the precious metal they are made of.
The presence of the precious metal inside has preserved or increased its purchasing power.
As we can see from the table, the presence of the precious metal inside the lira not only guaranteed a value much higher than the exchange rate, but also preserved its purchasing power, in some cases even increasing it.
Unfortunately, in recent decades, silver has not fared as well as gold in terms of appreciation of value. We note that the purchasing power of silver has undergone a clear reduction compared to the first decades of the last century.
For these reasons, gold is considered the safe haven par excellence, while silver is considered more of a speculative asset.
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