What the ? Millions of Pre WWII british gold coins in the USA Mint ?

Sorry if this was posted elsewhere

https://www.coinworld.com/news/us-c...t-storing-millions-of-foreign-gold-coins.html

 

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"None of the documentation provided to Coin World pursuant to its April 5 FOIA request nor gained from direct inquiry to Mint officials answers when the U.S. Mint began amassing the bags of gold coins; or over what period the coins were accumulated and for what purpose; or why the Mint doesn’t either melt them and reclaim the metal for U.S. coin production or sell them as a numismatic product, in much the same way Treasury-held bags of Seated Liberty, Morgan and Peace silver dollars were dispersed in the 1960s and 1970s."

I vote for them to be dispersed to the public (gradually or staggered) than to be melted down to make modern commemoratives.

 

Very interesting!! Conspiracy theories to follow..

 

Recent video from "deep storage" beneath the US Mint.

 

How do you "gradually" disperse 4.7 million foreign gold coins from Pre WWII era ?

I see gold hitting $500/oz with that program

 

"Dear collectors we are finally selling something that you may actually want"

Some sort of marketing like that should work

 

Thanks for sharing that link. It would be fun to see all those gold coins.

 

LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!

 

Four point seven million coins is not so much in the grand scheme of things. Consider the population of the U.S. alone. Let's say only one coin could be sold to any one person. Only one out of every 69 people would even be able to own one.

Consider the suggestion of a gradual and staggered release and I can tell you with reasonable certainty that the price of gold will be fine-- especially when international buyers come into the mix.

Additionally, even if it did go to $500 an ounce would this be such a bad thing? More of the common folk would be able to afford to buy gold than for it to remain in the reaches of the upper-middle class and higher.

 

When you consider how much gold mining there is, and how much gold is constantly being dumped into the market, the price is only affected slightly.
If all these coins were released all at once, the price of gold might fall $10 an ounce or less. It also might rise, as there will be more buying than selling as people snap these coins up. Maybe this was some payment for Lend Lease.
Perhaps some history buffs can educate me on this topic.
Pointless to have these coins sitting in a vault for 75 years, it's worth the same as a bag of rocks if you never sell them.

 

Who says the U.S. even owns these? They are stored at West Point. Nobody said who owns them. Aren't we "jumping the gun" a little here? Very little of the gold in Southern Manhattan is owned by the U.S., just for one example. We stored the original Magna Carta in a U.S. vault for years, too, and it isn't "ours".

 

The article implies the U.S. government owns them

'Deep storage, according the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, is “that portion of the U.S. government-owned gold bullion reserve which the Mint secures in sealed vaults that are examined annually by the Treasury Department’s Office of the Inspector General and consists primarily of gold bars.'

And if they didn't own them those countries better be paying us storage fee's to hold them lol. Makes one wonder though if the government still might have somewhere some bags of U.S. gold coins that escaped being melted into .900 bars as well.

 

The distribution of dates would tell a story.

 

Less than a million sovereigns with a melt value of 1.2 billion is not all that much in the grand scheme of things and unlikely to dent the coin market, especially when you consider that more than 18 million sovereigns were minted in 1928 in South Africa alone.

Somehow I cannot imagine this hoard would include any 1819 or 1879 (London mint) sovereigns