"Certain things shouldn’t be moved." Writer Murray Teigh Bloom, who first reported his discovery in his first book, Money of Their Own, Scribners, 1957. As he explained in a recent letter (circa 1978), "Once the Philadelphia Mint experimented and found $5.00 was lost by abrasion every time a million dollars worth of gold coin was handled. Just lifting the bags (each filled with $5,000 worth of gold coin) to the truck resulted in a $5.00 loss; transferring them back to the mint caused another $5.00 loss. Letting the stuff rest quietly at Fort Knox instead of moving it around nervously to Sub-Treasuries makes us richer."
I saw a program on TV that said that some coins are stored in the West Point Mint. Did I hear it wrong?
I believe you are correct. I think I read that there are also a few bags of foreign gold pieces as well, such as British sovereigns, French roosters, etc.
Eh, its there. Why wouldn't it be? Way worst to ever find out its not there, and like a few weeks of spending for the current government anyway. It wouldn't help anything, (which should be its own shocking conclusion).
About 20% of gold reserves are in the Denver mint, about 20% at West Point and about 60% at Ft. Knox. Very small percentages are at SF and Philly mints. See the link. Total "book" value is about $10 billion. "Book" is based on about $42/oz. Because there are about 250 million oz, market value must be around $500 billion. Cal https://www.usmint.gov/about/mint-tours-facilities/fort-knox
"Sweating gold” in bags is an age old practice. You put a bunch of gold coins in a bag and shake it up for a while. After doing this a few times, you cut the bag open and extract small pieces of gold that had been knocked off the coins. After a while, you have an illicit profit if you can pass the coins for their full value. That’s why gold coins that were underweight were not accepted for their full value in the days of the Gold Standard.
Below is a quote from Roger Burdette’s Mine to Mint. He’s describing the floor of the Denver mint where precious metals were assayed, refined, rolled and coined. Cal
This is from Roger' book Saudi Gold. The U.S. contract with railroads provided fixed shipping rates for mail. By this means the governement shipped two hundred tons of gold from Philadelphia to New York for $4,554 from August - December 1914. This cost, although modest by any standard, was not recoverable by the Treasury. In addition, time was required to weigh, bag and seal shipments, and then do the opposite upon receipt. All the handling meant that significant quantities of gold rubbed off on the gloves of employees and canvas bags. Mint Director Baker estimated that for every 10,000 oz. of gold shipped a minimum of one quarter oz. was lost. Thus, shipping two hundred tons (4,800,000 oz.) resulted in a loss of approximately one hundred twenty oz. of gold or about $2,408.
