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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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Perhaps this is one of the reasons why that new refinery is being built in Tennessee.
The poster.
That’s a lot of gold. The article doesn’t say if anybody has actually seen it.
I saw it in the movie Goldfinger!
Because gold refined in the early parts of the last century were not refined to today’s standards.
Nothing has changed with the gold in our reserves. We melted down a bunch of pre 1933 coins which were NEVER at 99.99% purity.
This story is a huge nothing burger.
Agreed.
A stupid article from a website no one has ever heard of.
Sound Money Defense League
This org didn’t even exist until 2014
FUD Psywar. Only the dimmest bulbs are duped by such obvious gaslighting.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons why that new refinery is being built in Tennessee.
AI: Details of the Repatriation
Key Facts:
Amount Repatriated: 129 tonnes of gold
Profit Made: Approximately €13 billion ($15 billion)
Reason for Repatriation: Rising geopolitical tensions and a desire for greater control over national reserves
Timing and Strategy
France sold its gold stored in New York and replaced it with newer, high-quality bullion from European central banks.”
US Gold purity, more:
AI:
“The purity of U.S. gold reserves, particularly in Fort Knox, is generally around 91.67%, but much of it was delivered before modern assay standards, making it potentially unsuitable for “good delivery” by today’s market standards. The last official audit of Fort Knox was conducted in 1953, and since then, there has been ongoing speculation about the actual purity and quantity of gold held.”
This is a nothing-burger. So in reality, what this means is that we have 92% of the gold we’re reported to have in Fort Knox. So the 8,133.5 metric tons of gold reported is actually 7,482.82 metric tons. How does that change anything?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/france-pulls-all-gold-out-of-us-federal-reserve/ar-AA20kMsf
France has sold its remaining gold holdings that were held in the U.S. Federal Reserve, completing a long-term plan to bring its gold reserves home and update its old stock to meet modern international standards.
The country’s central bank, the Banque de France, made nearly 13 billion euros, or around $15 billion, after upgrading 129 tonnes of gold between July 2025 and January 2026 and replacing it with new, compliant bars stored in Paris....
Where the hell did he get his information? MORE BS from the Media. GFO.
“Stupid article, really.”
You are so right. The purity of the product will dictate the cost. Does it make any difference whether they are paid off in 50’s or 500 dollar bills.
wy69
Hmmm... I recall Trump saying that one of the first things he wanted to do after Inauguration was to tour and scrutinize Fort Knox. Guess he didn’t.
I don’t believe this.
While I am sure there is plenty of coin-melt gold, which is 22 karat, aka “crown gold”, There’s no way most US gold is this type of gold or raw dore gold from mines.
I don’t know why someone would write this and/or where they got their info.
How does that change anything?
The BIS ( international Banking group governing Central Banks) as of last July declared physical Gold a Tier One asset, a “ HQLA”, Highest Quality Liquid Asset”, which tells me France with all their financial woes want Gold that can be sold off immediately.
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