us went off the silver standard in 1873.
us went off the silver standard in 1873.
when did the us go off the silver standard?
1873
in 1704, following queen anne's proclamation, the british west indies became one of the first regions to adopt a gold standard in conjunction with the spanish gold doubloon coin. in 1717, the master of the royal mint, sir isaac newton, introduced a new mint ratio as between silver and gold, and this had the effect of putting britain onto a "de facto" gold standard. following the napoleonic wars, the united kingdom introduced the gold sovereign coin and formally adopted a gold standard in 1821. at the same time, revolutions in latin america interrupted the supply of silver dollars (pieces of eight) that were being produced at the mints in potosi, mexico, and lima, peru. the british gold standard initially extended to some of the british colonies, including the australasian and southern african colonies, but not to its north american colonies, british india, or to southeast asia. the province of canada adopted a gold standard in 1853, as did newfoundland in 1865. in 1873, imperial germany changed over to the gold standard in conjunction with the new gold mark coin. the united states changed over to gold "de facto" in the same year, and over the next 35 years, all other nations changed to gold, leaving only china and the british colonies of hong kong and weihaiwei on the silver standard. the silver standard finally came to an end when it was abandoned by china and hong kong in 1935.
silver standard
the silver standard was again adopted and codified in 1914 by the newly established republic, with one yuan still being equal to 0.72 tael of 900 fineness silver. after the chinese nationalist party (kuomintang) unified the country in 1928, the yuan was again announced as the standard unit in 1933, but this time the relationship of the yuan to the tael was abolished, as one yuan was now equal to 26.6971 grams of 880 fineness silver. in the same year, 1933, while most of the western countries (especially britain and usa) had left the gold standard because of the great depression, it was said that china almost avoided the depression entirely, mainly due to having stuck to the silver standard. however, the us silver purchase act of 1934 created an intolerable demand on china's silver coins, and so in the end the silver standard was officially abandoned in september 1935 in favor of the four chinese national banks' "legal note" issues. china would be the last to abandon the silver standard, along with the british crown colony of hong kong.
silver standard