There are two pieces: 1) the executive order, and 2) defining possession of greater than 5 ounces of gold to be illegal under “trading with the enemy” laws.
I’m sure I’ll be corrected, but if memory serves me correctly, the prohibition against owning gold bullion was different than and predated FDR’s EO. It was a clause in the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 that prohibited any citizen of the US to trade gold bullion or currency (supposedly with foreign countries but it was pretty vague on that part). FDR’s EO was part of the New Deal circa 1933 that prohibited selling paper money for gold.
In other words, the first instance prohibited using gold coins or bullion as a traded good and actually prohibited ownership. The second prohibited buying gold (supposedly to shore up the dollar).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
Executive Order 6102 required U.S. citizens to deliver on or before May 1, 1933 all but a small amount of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve, in exchange for $20.67 per troy ounce. Under the Trading With the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917, as amended on March 9, 1933, violation of the order was punishable by fine up to $10,000 ($167,700 if adjusted for inflation as of 2010) or up to ten years in prison, or both.
The limitation on gold ownership in the U.S. was repealed after President Gerald Ford signed a bill legalizing private ownership of gold coins, bars and certificates by an act of Congress codified in Pub.L. 93-373 [2] [3] which went into effect December 31, 1974. P.L. 93-373 did not repeal the Gold Repeal Joint Resolution,[4][5] which made unlawful any contracts which specified payment in a fixed amount of money or a fixed amount of gold. That is, contracts remained unenforceable if they used gold monetarily rather than as a commodity of trade. However, Act of Oct. 28, 1977, Pub. L. No. 95-147, § 4(c), 91 Stat. 1227, 1229 (originally codified at 31 U.S.C. § 463 note, recodified as amended at 31 U.S.C. § 5118(d)(2)) amended the 1933 Joint Resolution and made it clear that parties could again include so-called gold clauses in contracts formed after 1977 [6].
When Beck took on GoldLine as a sponsor, gold was at $550 an ounce. Now it is just shy of $1300. ‘Nuff said.
Wiener hates it that you cannot re-distribute GOLD buried in the backyard.. (or somewhere).. and that it probably WILL go UP in VALUE not DOWN like currency..
Well, I distinctly remember that is was against the law to own gold in the 1950s up until 1975 when they finally repealed the law. My Uncle was a gold miner, he worked in the gold mines in CA until WWII started and they shut them down, but he continued to pan gold, after the war, he served in German as an infantryman, but was careful how he sold it as it was still against the law to own raw gold. The guy that says they repealed it in 1934 is full of sh**. And no, no one was made whole.
“what about all the people who lost their gold? Were they ever made whole (a rhetorical question?)”
Might have been rhetorical, but the answer is that the gubmint paid for the gold with greenbacks, which they promptly devalued by printing a bunch more currency.