Silver Price History
From the Hunt brothers’ corner in 1980 to the record broken in 2025: the peaks, the crashes and the annual averages that explain how silver got to today’s price.
Prices as of 14 Nov 2026 · refreshed twice daily
Silver price milestones
| Date | Milestone | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| 18 Jan 1980 | Hunt brothers peak — London fix $49.45 | The London silver fix prints $49.45, the highest fix of the Hunt brothers era; COMEX futures touch $50.35 intraday the same week. Gold peaks at $850 the same day; the gold-to-silver ratio falls to 17:1. |
| 27 Mar 1980 | Silver Thursday — the corner collapses | After COMEX changes its trading rules, the Hunts' leveraged position unwinds and the price collapses within weeks, ending the corner attempt. |
| Apr 2011 | The 2011 run stalls just short of the record | Silver trades near $49.80 intraday in late April 2011; the London fix peaks at $48.70 on 28 April 2011. The only serious challenge to the 1980 record in 31 years — and it fails. |
| Mar 2020 | COVID crash below $12, then a sharp recovery | Silver falls below $12 per ounce in the March 2020 panic, then recovers to average $20.55 for the year — a 27% rise on 2019's average. |
| Feb 2021 | The Reddit 'silver squeeze' pushes silver toward $30 | Retail traders pile into silver after the GameStop episode; silver briefly approaches $30 before settling back. The 2021 annual average is $25.14. |
| 9 Oct 2025 | The 1980 record finally falls | After 45 years, 8 months and 21 days, silver breaks above the 1980 record and passes $50 for the first time since 1980, on industrial demand and investment flows. |
| 29 Jan 2026 | All-time intraday high near $121.60 | Silver prints an all-time intraday high of about $121.60, then falls sharply — the most volatile stretch in the metal's modern history. |
Silver annual average price (LBMA, USD/oz)
| Year | Annual average (USD/oz) | The year in one line |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $20.55 | COVID crash to $12; sharp recovery |
| 2021 | $25.14 | Reddit silver squeeze (February) |
| 2022 | $21.73 | Fed rate hikes; dollar strength |
| 2023 | $23.35 | Banking stress; safe-haven flows |
| 2024 | $28.27 | Record industrial demand |
| 2025 | $40.03 | Breaks $50 — first time since 1980 |
Three eras of the silver price
The corner (1979–1980). Silver’s first modern mania was not about industry or inflation alone — it was an attempted corner. From 1973, Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt, sons of a Texas oil billionaire, accumulated silver on borrowed money until they were among the largest private holders in the world. The price ran from about $6 in early 1979 to a London fix of $49.45 on 18 January 1980 (COMEX futures touched $50.35 intraday that week), with gold peaking at $850 the same day and the gold-to-silver ratio compressing to 17:1. Then COMEX changed its rules, the leveraged position unwound, and the price collapsed — Silver Thursday, 27 March 1980. The $49.45 fix stood as the record for more than 45 years.
The long ceiling (1980–2024). For four decades, $50 was silver’s ceiling. The 2011 run — driven by post-crisis money printing and eurozone fears — came closest, trading near $49.80 intraday in late April 2011 with the London fix peaking at $48.70 on 28 April, then falling back. The 2010s were mostly a sideways decade, and the 2020 COVID crash took silver below $12 before a sharp recovery. Through it all, the annual average tells the slow story: $20.55 in 2020, $25.14 in 2021, a dip to $21.73 in 2022 as rates rose, then a steady climb to $28.27 in 2024 as industrial demand — above all solar panels — set new records.
The record breaks (2025–2026). On 9 October 2025, silver finally cleared the 1980 record and passed $50 for the first time in 45 years, on a combination of industrial demand, investment flows and a structural supply deficit. The annual average for 2025 was about $40 — nearly double 2020’s. The rally then accelerated into January 2026, printing an all-time intraday high near $121.60 on 29 January 2026, before falling sharply again — a reminder that silver’s history repeats its pattern: long ceilings, sharp breaks, and violent reversals. Today’s price, at the top of this page, is the latest point on that line. For what the price is doing right now, see the live silver spot price; for why industry keeps buying, industrial silver demand.
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