Posted on 04/28/2026 7:45:14 AM PDT by delta7
The bulk of the US gold reserves held in Fort Knox are made up of impure “non-standard” bars that don’t qualify for use in international settlements. In practice, this means that most of America’s massive gold stockpile is illiquid and wouldn’t be readily accepted on the international market should the need arise:
“It’s a decrepit relic just like our monetary policy is. With respect to America’s gold stockpile, we hold ourselves to a lower standard than the rest of the world,” Money Metals CEO Stefan Gleason said.
The French central bank recently sold 129 tonnes of similar non-standard gold that was stored in New York and replaced it with higher-quality bars that will remain in France.
Notwithstanding the lack of any credible physical audits for decades, US gold reserves are reported to be 8,133.5 metric tons. That’s roughly 261.5 million troy ounces. About half of that (147.3 million ounces according to the US Mint) is stored at Fort Knox. The rest is spread out between the Denver Mint, the West Point Bullion Depository, and the Federal Reserve vault in New York.
America’s gold is valued at $42.22 per ounce by statute. The price does not fluctuate with market movements.
According to the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), gold bars must contain 350 to 430 fine troy ounces and have a minimum fineness of 995.0 parts per thousand to be acceptable for international settlements. In fact, the “good delivery” standards across the globe have been transitioning to 0.9999 purity.
Based on documents released during a 2011 House Committee on Financial Services Hearing, however, we find only around 17 percent of the gold bars held by the US government in Fort Knox meet any modern-day purity standards.
Here’s a breakdown of the purity of the gold bars held in Fort Knox:
Fineness between 899 and 901 – 64 percent Fineness between 901.1 and 915.4 – 2 percent Fineness between 915.5 and .917 – 17 percent Fineness of 0.995 or higher – 17 percent The average purity of US gold reserves is 916.7 Problematic Audits, Chain-of-Custody Discrepancies, Missing Records
Keep in mind, we’re operating on guesswork here because the US government’s gold holdings have not been audited since at least the 1970s.
In 1974, the government put together a publicity stunt in the name of an audit. The US Treasury opened just one of its 15 Fort Knox vault compartments to politicians and reporters to view the gold and confirm its existence.
That’s been called an audit. However, none of the bars that were passed around were ever matched to a serial number, assayed or tested for purity, or even verified as part of the United States’ holdings. As Sound Money Defense League Director Matthew Cortez pointed out, “It seems the made-for-TV spectacle in 1974 was more of a pep rally than any credible proof of what the amount of US gold purported to be in those vaults.”
Following the 1974 publicity stunt, the US Treasury says it conducted a multi-year process of opening and inventorying vault compartments and affixing new tamper-evident seals to the doors of each compartment upon completion. However, these so-called audits failed to meet basic transparency or accounting standards.
Some reports have since gone missing, and there is no record of comprehensive assaying, weighing, or transactional history available to the public.
Furthermore, there is evidence that seals on vault compartments have been broken over the years, bars have been moved for unknown reasons, and seals have been re-affixed without fresh auditing. Subsequent annual reviews of the schedules of compartment seals serve only to whitewash the prior discrepancies.
In sum, the US Treasury’s management of US gold reserves is replete with audit “no-nos” that would never pass muster at a responsibly run private depository.
An “audit the gold” bill introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) last year would not only require a comprehensive audit of US gold reserves, including, importantly, an accounting of any transactions involving said gold. It would also require the Treasury to refine all non-standard bars so that they meet modern requirements for international settlements—a process that could take several years.
Why So Much Non-Standard Gold?
How did the US end up holding so many impaired gold bars that are illiquid on global markets?
It is the legacy of US policy that abandoned the gold standard, leaving us with the fiat system we live with today.
Needing to expand the money supply to support his spending plans, President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to expropriate the public’s gold and add it to the national reserves. On April 5, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102, effectively making private gold ownership illegal.
FDR claimed the measure was to prevent “hoarding.” However, by creating an expansive definition of “hoarding,” the EO was designed to take virtually all gold coins and bars out of private hands and transfer them to the government.
Many people refer to Roosevelt’s scheme as “gold confiscation,” but that overstates what actually happened. The government didn’t go door-to-door taking people’s gold. However, the Federal Reserve still collected plenty of gold, especially gold held by institutions.
But many Americans also turned in their gold voluntarily as an act of obedience. Some likely did so because they trusted the government, others out of a sense of patriotism, and some probably turned their gold in out of fear.
Everyone was paid roughly $20 per ounce for their gold. But six months later, FDR formally devalued the dollar by some 40 percent when he declared gold worth $35 per ounce.
Much of the confiscated gold was in the form of coins that were generally 90 percent pure. At the time, private banks, along with the Federal Reserve, held a large number of coins. That was because Federal Reserve notes were redeemable for gold.
However, with private ownership of gold effectively banned, people would no longer be able to trade paper for metals, and there was no need to hold on to a bunch of coins. The government melted the coins down and formed them into bars, which now sit in Fort Knox vaults (as far as we know).
In a 1994 article published by The Journal of Economic Education, William C. Wood called the Fort Knox depository “an artifact of the gold standard days.”
The gold currently in Fort Knox came from the melting of Depression-era gold coins, from lend-lease arrangements in War II, and from government operations under the gold standard. Wood specifically noted, “The gold resulting from melting of coinage has considerably lower quality than the ‘fine’ or ‘good delivery’ gold commonly used in international trade. The majority of the gold in Fort Knox is the lower-quality coin gold.”
In some ways, it makes sense that US gold reserves are impure and useless on the international market. It reflects the nature of the fiat system that replaced it.
Mises Institute Editor in Chief Ryan McMaken called the US gold reserves “a legacy of theft and lies,” pointing out that the gold reserve was never intended to be a “static, untouchable hoard of the US government.”
"It was supposed to be there for Americans and other users of dollars who traded in their dollars for gold. Gold was supposed to flow in and out. Then, the US government slammed the doors of the federal gold vaults shut and declared “the gold is all ours forever.”
Like most everything else the US government “owns,” the gold in the US gold reserves is there due to many years of lies, gaslighting, and deception. The gold is there because the US regime defaulted on its debts and reneged on its promises to back dollars in gold."
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Right, they are 90% “coin melt” bars. Stupid article, really.
Watered down Gold ?
Consider the source.
So our currency is just slightly more reliable than bitcoin?
So, the article has almost no credibility.
Fools Gold! Or probably “Fooled You!” gold.
“the article has almost no credibility”
A quick look at who this source is told me all I needed to know.
Which makes me question the motives of the original poster.
Do we need a full audit? Yes! But I would like to know what set people off in the past couple of weeks that the gold in Ft. Knox isn't .999 pure.
“So our currency is just slightly more reliable than bitcoin?”
Didn’t you know our currency is issued under the “full faith and credit of the United States Government”? We at least have that going for us... /h
I’ll take the impure bars. I’m not fussy.
“Consider the source”
Exactly.....AND the poster for that matter
.
Mises Institute? They're a good source.
LOL, exactly.
If they want to get rid of that worthless 90% gold, I’ll take it.
Keep in mind, we’re operating on guesswork here. Who would have read this if that was how they started this article.
A little refining and they’ll be pure as needed.
This quality of gold is a perfectly fine way to have it. It can be refined, when needed.
Why refine it, when it is not needed? It is not like we have to find and process ore.
If you don’t want your impure gold or silver coins, I’ll take them.
there is no-one who would turn down 90% gold. you might get 15% less than if it were .999 because of the refinery fee that would have to be paid to make it pure, but it is not a big deal when looking at the big picture.
I would be happy just to know how much is really there, once I knew that I could multiply it by .9 or .85
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