From crowns to circuit boards: how we've used gold and silver

Money

For most of history, gold and silver were money. The first coins were struck around 600 BCE. Much later, under the gold standard, paper money could be swapped for gold at a fixed price. That ended in the 20th century, and you can read how on our price history page.

Coins and bars are still a popular way to own gold and silver. In 2025, buying of gold bars and coins hit a 12-year high.

Jewellery

Jewellery is one of the oldest uses of gold. At Varna, in Bulgaria, people were buried about 6,500 years ago wearing gold bracelets, pendants, earrings and beads. Gold works so well because it's easy to shape and it doesn't corrode or tarnish.

Pure gold is too soft for everyday wear, so jewellers mix it with other metals. The karat (K) number tells you how much gold is in the mix, out of 24 parts:

Sterling silver and the first hallmarks

Silver gets the same treatment. Sterling silver is 92.5% silver, which is why it's stamped 925. In Canada, anything sold as sterling has to meet that standard.

The idea goes back to London in 1300, when a law under King Edward I set the sterling standard and required a leopard's head mark on silver. By 1478, a maker's mark and a date letter had been added. The word "hallmark" most likely comes from Goldsmiths' Hall, where London's silver was tested.

Sacred and ceremonial objects

Ancient Egyptians believed their gods had bodies of gold. In the Middle Ages, churches made their most important objects from the most precious materials they had. Hagia Sophia, in Constantinople, was said to hold hundreds of vessels of pure gold in the 500s, and in the 1140s Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis argued that the Eucharist deserved golden vessels.

Teeth

Gold has been in people's mouths for a very long time. From about 700 BCE, the Etruscans in Italy made false teeth by fixing human or ox teeth into gold bands. Only the wealthy could afford them. Gold crowns and fillings are still with us today.

Photography

From 1839 until the digital age, photography ran on silver. The daguerreotype, announced in Paris on August 19, 1839, captured images on a copper plate coated with silver. Film used light-sensitive silver compounds for generations after that. Silver use in photography peaked in 1999. By 2022, digital cameras had cut it by about 200 million ounces a year.

Medicine

People have used silver to fight infection for thousands of years. In the 1800s, doctors used silver nitrate on wounds and in newborns' eyes. A silver cream for burns arrived in 1968, and silver is still used in wound dressings and catheter coatings today.

Gold had a medical moment too. From around 1930, gold compounds were used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, and they stayed a standard treatment for several decades.

Electronics and space

Today, a lot of gold and silver ends up in things you'd never think to look at:

• Electronics. Gold coats connectors and wires inside phones and computers because it doesn't corrode. Silver is the best electrical conductor of any metal.
• Solar panels. Silver paste carries the current in solar cells. In 2024, solar panels used a record 197.6 million ounces of silver.
• Space. A thin layer of gold on astronauts' helmet visors protects them from the sun's radiation. The mirrors of the James Webb Space Telescope are coated with a fine film of gold, too.

Where gold and silver go today

In 2025, total gold demand passed 5,000 tonnes for the first time. Here's where most of it went:

Silver is a different story. In 2025, industry used about 58% of all the silver bought worldwide, and that share has been climbing for decades. Demand for silverware fell 21% that year, to a four-year low.

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