Today, once-rarified goods like silk, ceramics, and tea are taken for granted–evidence that international trade of goods and technologies fell victim to past successes. For over two-thousand years, both land-based and ocean-based trade connected centers in present-day China with external interests. By the seventeenth and eighteenth century numerous European powers were exchanging silver mined from the Americas for Chinese silks, ceramics, and tea. By the nineteenth century, much of that same silver reversed course as Chinese silver purchased opium produced in India but managed by British planters transported by British-government sanctioned piracy. As nineteenth century competition arose, the introduction of European and American silk centers lessened demands for expensive Chinese silks. Japanese porcelain exports, and new European and American porcelain manufacturers, and major loss of Jingdezhen kilns between 1855 and 1866 all affected Chinese porcelain exports. Finally, new nineteenth century competition also arose for tea, as the first commercial production of tea in India (like Darjeeling and Assam) and Sri Lanka (like Ceylon) began. This illustrated lecture examines a nineteenth century silver revolution. Discussing silver’s role in the transformation and consumption of once rarified goods to those taken for granted daily around the world.