Silver has been a valuable commodity for 5,000 years--ever since the very first silver mining endeavor in Anatolia (present day Turkey) in 3000 B.C. The majority of silver production shifted continents until Bolivia, Peru, and Mexico earned that top spot between the 16th and 19th centuries with the discovery of the New World. In the late 1850s, silver mining was born in the United States with the discovery of the Comstock Lode in Nevada, and more discoveries all over the world followed in the years to come.