History
Sound money by year
Sound-money years, one page each: a short note and one picture. 1776, 1792, 1914, 1971, and the other dated breaks already on this site.
- 1545PotosíCerro Rico starts feeding silver into Atlantic and Pacific trade.
- 1609Bank of AmsterdamThe Wisselbank takes mixed coin and credits a bank guilder merchants can transfer.
- 1694Bank of EnglandA war loan and a note issue. Not a copy of Amsterdam’s giro.
- 1720Mississippi BubbleJohn Law’s notes and Mississippi shares break in the same year.
- 1776Continental paperIndependence, new Continental notes, and a book that still treated gold and silver as money.
- 1792Coinage ActCongress writes gold and silver into the dollar at a fixed mint ratio.
- 1832Jackson vetoes the BankThe President blocks a new charter for the Second Bank of the United States.
- 1873Coinage ActThe standard silver dollar is dropped from the coinage list.
- 1907Panic of 1907A New York scramble, a private rescue, and no public central bank yet.
- 1914Gold standard breaksWar finance stops the peacetime rules: convertibility and gold shipment.
- 1923WeimarThe paper mark stops working. The Rentenmark is the stop that follows.
- 1933Gold recallOrder 6102 calls in most private monetary gold. The official price is reset the next year.
- 1971Gold window closes15 August: the United States suspends dollar–gold convertibility for foreign officials.
- 1980Silver ThursdayA concentrated silver position, a rule change, a March break. The record, not a lesson in what to hold.