Silver and the Wizard of OZ

Image: Instagram.

We’re off to see the Wizard, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. We hear he is a whiz of a Wiz If ever a Wiz there was.

High school history teacher Henry M. Littlefield published an article titled “The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism” in the American Quarterly in 1964. It was based in part, on the 1896 William Jennings Bryan “Cross of Gold” speech at the 1896 Democratic convention tied to late-19th-century American debates over monetary policy, particularly the role of silver versus the gold-only standard after the Coinage Act of 1873 demonetized silver.

Bryan lost the 1896 election decisively to Republican William McKinley, partly because the gold standard appealed to industrial and urban voters, while free silver resonated more in the agrarian West and South.

As president, McKinley solidified this position signing the Gold Standard Act in 1900, which formally placed the U.S. on a strict gold standard, ending any official role for silver as a monetary base (though silver coins continued for subsidiary use).

In Littlefields book Bryan was cast as the Lion, (Bryan rhymes with lion) Dorothy represented the American People, the Tin Man represented the worker and the Scarecrow represented the Farmer.

Dorothy wore silver shoes in the novel (not ruby as portrayed in the movie), and the yellow brick road represented gold.

Littlefield used this to symbolize silver as a monetary metal. Walking on the gold road in silver shoes suggests the Populist idea that using silver (bimetallism, or “free silver”) alongside gold could empower ordinary people and solve economic woes.

The Emerald city represented the greenback, and the Wizard of Oz was said to represent any president or congress trying to be all things to all people and never achieving much.

Or, representing central banks, hiding behind a curtain that once pulled back would be exposed as a fraud.

There is certainly some truth to the former, with the US government not removing the dollar from the gold standard until 1971, allowing gold to become just another commodity like silver.

Also, Littlefield used “Oz” to represent ounces.

While not everyone agrees Baum wrote it as deliberate allegory (he always claimed The Wizard of Oz was just for children), Littlefield’s 1964 analysis remains a compelling study for understanding the era’s monetary battles, with the gold standard’s victory sidelining silver as money, paving the way for it to become… a commodity.

From the Wizard to Today

Recent data shows Gold went past $5,000 USD, and silver is volatile, setting new records around $100–110+ range.

Currently this surge in Silver has sparked dramatic narratives doomsday predictions, anti-bank conspiracies and other assorted scenarios.

Like these…

After being heavily suppressed by banks using paper shorts, silver like gold has broken free of the market makers. i.e. banks.

This is a very strong signal that the U.S. bond market and currency is under severe stress.

Silver has always been the preferred metal of the anti banking establishment, (some truth in that actually).

Are we back to 1896?

Silver’s Industrial Edge

Silver has the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of any metal, along with excellent reflectivity, antimicrobial properties (anyone remember colloidal silver), and catalytic abilities.

It would take pages to list all the uses of silver with industrial demand being 60%+ of consumption.

Let’s take a look at the Fastest driver of Silver Consumption:

Image: Pixabay.

Solar panels: the largest and fastest-growing industrial product using silver.

Silver paste (conductive ink) is used in the front-side metallization of solar cells to collect and conduct electricity. Typically 10–20 grams of silver per panel.

The solar sector alone consumes 20%+ of total industrial silver demand.

Silver is unique in that nothing else comes close to matching its conductivity and substitution is difficult, because the trade offs are not efficient in either cost or performance.

I could go through a whole list of items that rely on silver right down to your bathroom mirror.

Considering that silver is mostly a by-product of lead, copper, and zinc mines, with very few standalone viable silver mines in the world (20–25?), the mining of silver is largely dependent on the price of the commodity mined beside it, be it copper, lead or zinc.

Let’s Compare Copper and Silver.

Copper has for decades been the workhorse in the economy. If the price of copper is going up everyone is busy. New frying pan anyone? However markets correct, production increases and everything gets rolling again.

Breaking the price down, copper is currently around $0.38 per ounce, silver is $100.00+ per ounce.

We all have our interpretation on the why’s, currently copper production is around 23 million metric tonnes per year and meeting rising demand, while the by-product, silver, with production at around 24,000 metric tonnes a year is not meeting demand.

Unlike copper which is one of the most recycled commodities in the world, the recycling of silver is largely a non event as 50–60% of silver demand is destroyed or dissipated in uses like solar panels, electronics, and catalysis.

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Is There a Wizard Behind the Curtain ? — No, Just Market Forces.

Unlike gold, which retains some monetary mystique (also popular with hoarders), silver’s surge isn’t a return to 1896, or proof of an impending fiat apocalypse.

Silver has long been primarily an industrial metal, essential these days for applications such as solar panels, electronics, EVs, and multiple other products.

With demand increasing (especially from renewables), and supply lagging (because it is a byproduct of other mining, with limited recycling, and bureaucracy approval times for new mines), the price is reflecting genuine under supply, not a suppressed “money” breaking free.

My thoughts: Treat silver like copper, a necessary commodity whose price signals economic activity and technological shifts.

It’s a supply and demand thing. Markets correct, production adjusts (higher prices incentivize more output/exploration), and things stabilize.

It is not the yellow brick road to riches, just supply, demand, and innovation.

At this time of innovative technologies, maybe silver is finally getting the respect it deserves as the ultimate industrial metal?

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