Civilizations have been using coins as currency for thousands of years and although the coins used today for things like nickels and dimes don’t really contain any silver, historians have researched the idea that silver coins were the oldest type of coinage used and that they even predated the use of bronze and gold coins. Although more rare varieties of coins were produced in years before silver coins started to be employed, silver coins were probably the first type of coin that was officially mass produced in great quantities which would allow an entire society to use coins for payment.