Advocates of free silver (or bimetallism) wanted the government to accept all silver bullion presented to it and to return it, struck into coin, at the historic value ratio between gold and silver of 16 to 1. This would restore a practice abolished in 1873. A free silver policy would inflate the currency, as the silver in a dollar coin was worth just over half the face value/ Someone who presented ten dollars in silver bullion would receive back almost twice that in silver coin.[12] Advocates believed these proposals would lead to prosperity, while opponents warned that varying from the gold standard (which the United States had, effectively, used since 1873) would cause problems in international trade.