Your intuition is correct. Salt wasn't particularly valuable at any time in the past. That's a myth.
It was only valuable in the same way that it is still valuable today: in bulk. A kilogram of salt isn't valuable, but the salt trade is colossally valuable. That's precisely because it's so plentiful, and so necessary to human life. Salt has always been a crucial resource, but never a prestige object or anything like that. No one ever made jewellery out of it.
Here's an answer I gave about a year ago that looks at the price of salt in ancient Rome. It was more expensive than it is in a modern industrialised society, but not extravagantly more.
Here's a thread posted by /u/Lynx_Rufus that previously touched upon this subject