History of Silver in Germany

According to local tradition, silver ore was found around 1168 at Christiansdorf in Saxony, the settlement that grew into Freiberg. It is regarded as the first silver find in the Ore Mountains.

9 January 1520. The Counts Schlick began minting large silver coins at Joachimsthal (now Jachymov) on the Bohemian side of the Ore Mountains on 9 January 1520. The coin's name became 'thaler', the root of the word 'dollar', and about 12 million Ore Mountain thalers had spread across Europe by the mid-1500s.

A mining academy was founded in the Ore Mountains in 1765; it is now part of TU Bergakademie Freiberg and is described as the world's oldest mining school still teaching.

July 1871. In July 1871 the Berlin mint suspended silver coinage as Germany prepared to move from silver to gold. Germany's large silver stock later had to be sold at a loss.

9 July 1873. The 1873 Coinage Act abolished the state currencies. Their 119 coin types, including the silver thaler and gulden, were fixed to the mark and gradually withdrawn.

16 July 1884. The Fineness Act of 16 July 1884 (in force 1 January 1888) allowed silver goods to state their fineness only at 800 thousandths or above. It is still in force.

The Erzgebirge/Krusnohori mining region on the German-Czech border, mined for silver, tin and other metals from the 12th to the 20th century, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2019.