It is nothing short of spectacular for investors and hoarders of the tried-and-true metals. People who have kept the faith in the real are being rewarded. For everyone else, these are scary signs concerning what might be coming our way.

For thousands of years, these two metals have been the most valued in human experience. That’s why they became money, which is the good we acquire to buy other goods. Money becomes that because the market selects the good in question. It’s the most marketable commodity.

Gold and silver have always fit the description because they have uniform quality, have a high value per unit of weight, are durable, and are highly divisible. So they became money in most places in the industrializing world.

I recently bought some old U.S. quarters and dimes made of silver. The price was far above the stated value because the money had been devalued while the specie value kept rising. They are really wonderful to hold and own because they serve as a reminder of what sound money means. They also symbolize economic and financial independence.

The United States has tried an experiment to make do with a currency that has no underlying integrity. It’s just paper or just digits. This was supposed to be more modern. We turned our backs on the “barbarous relic,” as John Maynard Keynes called gold.

The prediction made early in the fiat age was that these metals would fall in value to reflect their industrial uses. The monetary premium would disappear because they would no longer be money. The intellectuals, not the relics, would be in charge now.

Throughout the 1970s, both gold and silver boomed. It was a massive vote of confidence in the real and an insult to the new elites who promised a better system. It humiliated them.