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The Gold Story

Seize it at $20.67. Revalue it to $35. Pocket the spread.

Over four decades, the dollar's anchor to gold was loosened, confiscated, revalued, and finally cut. Here is the full arc — with the dates and the fine print.

1933: The confiscation

On April 5, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102, requiring Americans to surrender gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates to the Federal Reserve at the official price of $20.67 per ounce. The stated penalty for non-compliance was steep: up to $10,000 in fines and ten years in prison.

The order was narrower than legend remembers, and the fine print matters. It exempted gold jewelry, rare and collector coins, gold used in industry and the arts, and up to $100 in gold coin per person. It was a confiscation with carve-outs — but a confiscation all the same, with the government as the only legal buyer at a price it set.

The 1933 public notice for Executive Order 6102 requiring the surrender of gold coin, bullion, and gold certificates.
Executive Order 6102 notice (1933) — National Archives via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (U.S. Gov)

1934: The revaluation

Once the gold was in federal hands, the price changed. The Gold Reserve Act of January 30, 1934 revalued gold to $35 per ounce — a roughly 41% devaluation of the dollar against gold. Having bought at $20.67 and re-priced at $35, the government captured the spread on the very metal it had just collected. Citizens who had complied could not buy back in at the old price.

$20.67

Surrender price, 1933

Per ounce, under EO 6102

$35

Revalued price, 1934

Gold Reserve Act

~41%

Dollar devaluation

Against gold, 1933–34

Aug 15 1971

The gold window closes

Nixon ends convertibility

President Richard Nixon, who closed the gold window on August 15, 1971, ending dollar-to-gold convertibility.
Richard Nixon — Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (U.S. Gov)

1944–1971: Bretton Woods to the Nixon Shock

In 1944, the Bretton Woods agreement built the postwar monetary order on the dollar: foreign governments could redeem dollars for gold at the fixed $35 peg, and the world's currencies were pegged to the dollar in turn. The dollar was "as good as gold" — so long as the promise held.

It didn't. As dollars piled up abroad faster than the gold to back them, redemption pressure mounted. On August 15, 1971, President Nixon suspended the dollar's convertibility into gold — the Nixon Shock. What began as "temporary" never reversed. The pure fiat era opened here, and most long-run divergence charts begin bending right at 1971.

1974: Ownership re-legalized

For more than four decades, private gold ownership in the United States remained restricted. On December 31, 1974, under President Ford, Americans were once again permitted to freely own gold. By then the dollar it had once anchored was already adrift — a free-floating currency backed by nothing but confidence and the taxing power behind it.

The U.S. Treasury Building in Washington, D.C.
U.S. Treasury Building — Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

What backs your money?

What backs your money?

SILVER / GOLD CERTIFICATE · PRE-1933

“Redeemable in gold coin payable to the bearer on demand.”

A promise with teeth. Your paper was a claim on a fixed weight of metal the government held. You could walk in and collect it.

$20.67 / oz

the statutory gold price before 1934

FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE · TODAY

“This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.”

No metal. No claim. Backed by “full faith and credit” — and by law that says you must accept it. The thing it can be redeemed for is itself.

Nothing tangible

convertibility ended Aug 15, 1971

Dollar vs. Gold, since the gold window closed

$1 held as cash vs. $1 held as gold in 1971. Source: gold-api.com (live spot) + LBMA/World Gold Council historical

$1 KEPT AS CASH (real)

$1 KEPT AS GOLD

Walk the full timeline → · See every source →