That’s not quite what happened.
Gold (an element of the Periodic Table, 79 AU) was criminalized, which is kind of bizarre. It was confiscation in the sense thatt they gave people pieces of paper in exchange. Numismatic coins having “special collector” value were exempt, and individuals were allowed to keep $100 of regular issue coins, or about five Troy ounces. They didn’t wait “a few years” to ramp up the price, though.
And plenty of people were apparently tipped off ahead of time, because of the staggering huge number of US coins that were leaving America for Europe just prior to the ban. Pre-1933 US coinage is relatively common today, because of this early bird expatriation.
FDR ran on a campaign of strict adherence to a strong dollar gold standard. Go figure.
Just as importantly, the government reneged on gold bonds, sold to help pay for the first wars of the world, stiffing the flyover rubes yet again. Another casualty were gold clause contracts, where long term financial contracts were routinely denominated in ounces of gold, because 99 year leases have no meaning when expressed in paper money. You end up renting a whole skyscraper for a few thousand dollars a month by the end of the lease.
What Roosevelt did was worse than all this, because he repudiated contract law. As far as future monkey business in this area, someone would have to make the case that the US needs to return to the gold standard, so far that has decidedly not been the case. The immediate effect would be that the US would then lose all its remaining gold. People tend to forget just why it was Mr. Nixon felt compelled to renege on that last remaining link to gold and let currencies float.
And such a move (confiscation/criminalization) would likely be counterproductive and tend to call into question any number of assumptions about the state of affairs. For one thing, “they” already stole the largest pile ever recorded in human history, some 10,000 tons, under the guise that “hoarding” is “against public policy” (though presumably, when it’s stored in one location aka Ft. Knox, that isn’t “hoarding.”
Trying to be objective as possible, I just don’t see such a move as being too shrewd and would only serve to make an already skeptical everbody even more so. I suppose they can take the normal psy-op method and brand everyone who has a coin collection a Tourist, lumped in with bitter clingers, smokers, sane individuals, etc. And offer rewards (not in gold, probably?) to turn in those Evil Speculators.
You can bet your bottom Peace Dollar all those folks in years past when gold was $262 who were almost apoplectic whenever purchasing gold was suggested will be first in line to turn in their fellow comrade. FDR had the crime punishable by a year in jail and $10,000 - about $890,000 in todays money - er, in gold.
Just remember - nobody could see this coming.
What Roosevelt did was worse than all this, because he repudiated contract law. As far as future monkey business in this area, someone would have to make the case that the US needs to return to the gold standard, so far that has decidedly not been the case. The immediate effect would be that the US would then lose all its remaining gold. People tend to forget just why it was Mr. Nixon felt compelled to renege on that last remaining link to gold and let currencies float.
The rule of law is so far gone in the US now that criminality is defined by political affiliation, if gold is criminalized again it will be OK for rich Democrats to flaunt tons of ingots, but a Republican will get life for his wedding ring.
It won't be long before everybody figures out who the criminals really are, that always happens in every Communist dictatorship.