Why did Harry Browne drop Silver from the PP?

[Hal]

Originally HB had Silver in the PP but later dropped it, having just Gold as the only precious metal.
Does anyone recall his reasoning on this?

On one of his archived radio shows he mentioned that gold is the most popular money after the USD, and that if confidence is lost, funds flow into gold.

But, if someone lived in small country outside the USA, then it could be possible gold (and perhaps silver) would be more popular than their local currency.

Would holding both precious metals make sense if a PP was held in a "economically small" country?

[boglerdude]

Silver has industrial uses, so its less of a pure play on money

Preppers suggest silver coins for trade

Theres some silver in the former Central Fund http://www.centralfund.com/

[Cortopassi]

I hold 5% in silver. Down ~21% overall since I first started buying it in 2008.

Been a loooonnnngggg time red, except for that crazy 2011 peak.

[Hal]

Thanks for your ideas Boglerdude and Cortopassi,

Given the correlation between gold and silver, I am coming to the conclusion that it doesn't make much difference if a small amount of silver is in the PP or not. Harry may have just been trying to simplify things.

[Tortoise]

Harry's PP concept was to hold the precious metal piece directly for safety, and physical gold is easier than silver to store in one's own possession: It takes up much less storage space than silver since it's twice as dense and also much more valuable per ounce.

Also, the silver market is much smaller than the gold market, so its potential for being manipulated is probably higher (such as when the Hunt brothers nearly cornered the silver market in the 1970s). Not sure if that factored into Harry's decision to exclude silver.

That being said, I don't think there's anything wrong with holding some silver in a PP (I hold a small amount myself). There are just some good reasons why Harry designed the bulk of the PP's precious metals piece to be gold. He didn't choose the PP assets based on statistical correlation measurements. He picked them based on conceptual economic and financial reasons.