Although not one of Australia's major resources in terms of production or export value, 59.2 million ounces of the precious metal was extracted from the country's mines in 2013, just over $US1 billion worth. This puts Australia in fourth place worldwide, behind China, Peru and top producer Mexico.

Unfortunately for silver fans, it's all been downhill since April 2011 when silver reached its nominal record high of $US49.76 per ounce. The reason is simple, say analysts: silver tends to track gold very closely. Gold has become less popular as monetary policy in the United States normalises and silver is following faithfully behind.

"For me, silver just tracks gold, with a little more variety," said ANZ commodities analyst Victor Thianpiriya. "Historically, they've just tended to track each other quite closely. For that reason, it's viewed as a proxy for gold investment."

"We've had quite a significant selloff in gold over the last couple of months; it's down 10 per cent since mid-July. So silver is tracking that. We're just seeing a bit of speculative liquidation across all precious metals and silver is bearing the brunt of that."

Gold plummeted to $US1204.75 per ounce Wednesday, but is still trading at 71 times silver's value. Historically this is quite high: the 10-year average is 57.75. The last time silver was below $US17 was March 2010.

The gold-silver ratio was "very, very stretched", said Mr Thianpiriya. "When you have a down market - and the price of gold over the last three years has been in a downward trend - silver will go down by more than gold. It's as simple as that."

Jo Battershill, of UBS, said: "Silver is always more volatile than gold. It underperforms gold on the way down and overperforms gold on the way up."

Mr Battershill also pointed to US monetary policy as the main driver of the gold and silver price. "That would be most people's interpretation," he said. "It's the same thing that's driving gold. It's exactly the same story."

The supply and demand dynamics of silver are a little different to gold, however. On the supply side, "two-thirds of all silver is mined as a by-product in lead and zinc mines," said Mr Battershill. On the demand side, "silver has more industrial applications than any other commodity apart from oil. A lot of it does get consumed, unlike gold which just sits there as an investment."

Nevertheless, said Mr Thianpiriya, "although it does have some industrial aspects, it's very much viewed as an alternative precious metal".

In Australia, half of the country's silver output comes from BHP's Cannington silver and lead mine in north-west Queensland. Other significant silver mines are Glencore Xstrata's McArthur River mine in the Northern Territory, Zhongjin Lingnan's Broken Hill mine in New South Wales, Cobar Consolidated's Wonawinta mine in New South Wales, and Minmetals' Rosebery Base mine in Tasmania.

BHP is the world's second-biggest silver miner, just behind Mexico's Fresnillo.

Mr Battershill pointed out that over the next two years about 10 per cent of the world's zinc production will come off stream. The silver extracted as a byproduct in those mines will, therefore, stay in the ground and give some firm support to the silver price. "That's more of a fundamental reason to own it than gold, I would say," said Mr Battershill, who tipped a silver price of $US17.50 for the end of the year.

Mr Thianpiriya also tipped some upside for silver. "I think there's potential for that silver-gold ratio to come back in," he said. "I'm a little bit bullish on silver in the very short term and once we get past the end of this year there's the potential for better gains by the end of 2015."

He tipped $US18 for silver by year's end.