Gold reserve and Related Topics

Reichsbank

The central bank of the German Reich from 1876 until 1945.

A 100-Goldmark banknote issued by the German Reichsbank in 1908

A 10000 Mark banknote issued by the German Reichsbank in 1922. A watermark is present, but not visible in scanned image.

As Minister of Economics, Walther Funk accelerated the pace of rearmament and as Reichsbank president banked for the SS the confiscated gold rings of Buchenwald prisoners

Organization of the Reichsbank during the Nazi period.

The bank benefited by the theft of the property of numerous governments invaded by the Germans, especially their gold reserves and much personal property of the Third Reich's many victims, especially the Jews.

Gold standard

Monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold.

Gold certificates were used as paper currency in the United States from 1882 to 1933. These certificates were freely convertible into gold coins.

The British gold sovereign or £1 coin was the preeminent circulating gold coin during the classical gold standard period.

Huge quantities of $20 double eagles were minted as a result of the California gold rush.

The US dollar was said to be on a limping standard due to huge quantities of Morgan silver dollars continuing to circulate at par with gold dollars despite their silver value being less.

William McKinley ran for president on the basis of the gold standard.

Ending the gold standard and economic recovery during the Great Depression.

Gold prices (US dollars per troy ounce) from 1914, in nominal US dollars and inflation adjusted US dollars.

Many states still hold substantial gold reserves.

The Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington, D.C. houses the main offices of the Board of Governors of the United States' Federal Reserve System

Central bank

Institution that manages the currency and monetary policy of a state or formal monetary union,

The European Central Bank building in Frankfurt

Central bank independence versus inflation. This often cited research published by Alesina and Summers (1993) is used to show why it is important for a nation's central bank (i.e.-monetary authority) to have a high level of independence. This chart shows a clear trend towards a lower inflation rate as the independence of the central bank increases. The generally agreed upon reason independence leads to lower inflation is that politicians have a tendency to create too much money if given the opportunity to do it. The Federal Reserve System in the United States is generally regarded as one of the more independent central banks

Sealing of the Bank of England Charter (1694), by Lady Jane Lindsay, 1905.

The Bank of England, established in 1694.

Walter Bagehot, an influential theorist on the economic role of the central bank.

The headquarters of the People's Bank of China (established in 1948) in Beijing.

Reserve management: managing a country's foreign-exchange and gold reserves and government bonds;

Gold as an investment

Gold

Chemical element with the symbol Au and atomic number 79, making it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally.

Gold can be drawn into a monatomic wire, and then stretched more before it breaks.

A gold nugget of 5 mm in size can be hammered into a gold foil of about 0.5 m2 in area.

Schematic of a NE (left) to SW (right) cross-section through the 2.020-billion-year-old Vredefort impact crater in South Africa and how it distorted the contemporary geological structures. The present erosion level is shown. Johannesburg is located where the Witwatersrand Basin (the yellow layer) is exposed at the "present surface" line, just inside the crater rim, on the left. Not to scale.

Oldest golden artifacts in the world (4600 BC - 4200 BC) from Varna necropolis, Bulgaria - grave offerings on exposition in Varna Museum.

An Indian tribute-bearer at Apadana, from the Achaemenid satrapy of Hindush, carrying gold on a yoke, circa 500 BC.

The Muisca raft, between circa 600-1600 AD. The figure refers to the ceremony of the legend of El Dorado. The zipa used to cover his body in gold dust, and from his raft, he offered treasures to the Guatavita goddess in the middle of the sacred lake. This old Muisca tradition became the origin of the legend of El Dorado. This Muisca raft figure is on display in the Gold Museum, Bogotá, Colombia.

Ancient golden Kritonios Crown, funerary or marriage material, 370–360 BC. From a grave in Armento, Basilicata

Gold coin of Eucratides I (171–145 BC), one of the Hellenistic rulers of ancient Ai-Khanoum. This is the largest known gold coin minted in antiquity (169.2 g; 58 mm).

Gold crafts from the Philippines prior to Western contact.

The Agusan image, depicting a deity from northeast Mindanao.

A miner underground at Pumsaint gold mine, Wales; c. 1938.

Grasberg mine, Indonesia is the world's largest gold mine.

Relative sizes of an 860 kg block of gold ore and the 30 g of gold that can be extracted from it, Toi gold mine, Japan.

Gold prospecting at the Ivalo River in the Finnish Lapland in 1898

Two golden 20 kr coins from the Scandinavian Monetary Union, which was based on a gold standard. The coin to the left is Swedish and the right one is Danish.

Moche gold necklace depicting feline heads. Larco Museum Collection, Lima, Peru.

A 21.5k yellow gold pendant watch so-called "Boule de Genève" (Geneva ball), ca. 1890.

Cake with gold decoration served at the Amstel Hotel, Amsterdam

Mirror for the James Webb Space Telescope coated in gold to reflect infrared light

Kamakshi Amman Temple with golden roof, Kanchipuram.

Minoan jewellery; 2300–2100 BC; various sizes; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)

Pair of Sumerian earrings with cuneiform inscriptions; 2093–2046 BC; Sulaymaniyah Museum (Sulaymaniyah, Iraq)

Ancient Egyptian statuette of Amun; 945–715 BC; gold; {{cvt|175x47|mm}}; Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ancient Egyptian signet ring; 664–525 BC; gold; diameter: {{cvt|30|x|34|mm}}; British Museum (London)

Ancient Greek stater; 323–315 BC; {{cvt|18|mm}}; Metropolitan Museum of Art

Etruscan funerary wreath; 4th–3rd century BC; length: {{cvt|333|mm}}; Metropolitan Museum of Art

Roman aureus of Hadrian; 134–138 AD; 7.4 g; Metropolitan Museum of Art

Quimbaya lime container; 5th–9th century; gold; height: {{cvt|230|mm}}; Metropolitan Museum of Art

Byzantine scyphate; 1059–1067; diameter: {{cvt|25|mm}}; Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, Ohio, USA)

Pre-Columbian pendant with two bat-head warriors who carry spears; 11th–16th century; gold; overall: {{cvt|76.2|mm}}; from the Chiriqui Province (Panama); Metropolitan Museum of Art

English Neoclassical box; 1741; overall: {{cvt|44|x|116|x|92|mm}}; Metropolitan Museum of Art

French Rococo glass bottle mounted in gold; circa 1775; overall: {{cvt|70|x|29|mm}}; Cleveland Museum of Art

With the sharp growth of economies in the 20th century, and increasing foreign exchange, the world's gold reserves and their trading market have become a small fraction of all markets and fixed exchange rates of currencies to gold have been replaced by floating prices for gold and gold future contract.

Italy

Country that consists of a peninsula delimited by the Alps and several islands surrounding it, whose territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical region.

Expansion of the territory called "Italy" from ancient Greece until Diocletian

The Iron Crown of Lombardy, for centuries a symbol of the Kings of Italy

Marco Polo, explorer of the 13th century, recorded his 24 years-long travels in the Book of the Marvels of the World, introducing Europeans to Central Asia and China.

The Italian states before the beginning of the Italian Wars in 1494

Leonardo da Vinci, the quintessential Renaissance man, in a self-portrait (ca. 1512, Royal Library, Turin)

Christopher Columbus leads an expedition to the New World, 1492. His voyages are celebrated as the discovery of the Americas from a European perspective, and they opened a new era in the history of humankind and sustained contact between the two worlds.

Flag of the Cispadane Republic, which was the first Italian tricolour adopted by a sovereign Italian state (1797)

Holographic copy of 1847 of Il Canto degli Italiani, the Italian national anthem since 1946

Animated map of the Italian unification from 1829 to 1871

The Victor Emmanuel II Monument in Rome, a national symbol of Italy celebrating the first king of the unified country, and resting place of the Italian Unknown Soldier since the end of World War I. It was inaugurated in 1911, on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Unification of Italy.

The fascist dictator Benito Mussolini titled himself Duce and ruled the country from 1922 to 1943.

Areas controlled by the Italian Empire at its peak

Italian partisans in Milan during the Italian Civil War, April 1945

Alcide De Gasperi, first republican Prime Minister of Italy and one of the Founding Fathers of the European Union

The signing ceremony of the Treaty of Rome on 25 March 1957, creating the European Economic Community, forerunner of the present-day European Union

Funerals of the victims of the Bologna bombing of 2 August 1980, the deadliest attack ever perpetrated in Italy during the Years of Lead

Italian government task force to face the COVID-19 emergency

Dolphins in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Aeolian Islands

Gran Paradiso, established in 1922, is the oldest Italian national park.

The Italian wolf, the national animal of Italy

Köppen-Geiger climate classification map of Italy

The Chamber of Deputies is the lower house of Italy.

An Alfa Romeo 159 vehicle of the Carabinieri corps

Group photo of the G7 leaders at the 43rd G7 summit in Taormina

Heraldic coat of arms of the Italian Armed Forces

A proportional representation of Italy exports, 2019

Milan is the economic capital of Italy, and is a global financial centre and a fashion capital of the world.

The Autostrada dei Laghi ("Lakes Motorway"), the first motorway built in the world

FS' Frecciarossa 1000 high speed train, with a maximum speed of 400 km/h

Trieste, the main port of the northern Adriatic and starting point of the Transalpine Pipeline

ENI is considered one of the world's oil and gas "Supermajors".

Solar panels in Piombino. Italy is one of the world's largest producers of renewable energy.

Galileo Galilei, the father of modern science, physics and astronomy

Enrico Fermi, creator of the world's first first nuclear reactor

The Amalfi Coast is one of Italy's major tourist destinations.

Map of Italy's population density at the 2011 census

Italy is home to a large population of migrants from Eastern Europe and North Africa.

Linguistic map showing the languages spoken in Italy

Vatican City, the Holy See's sovereign territory

Bologna University, established in AD 1088, is the world's oldest academic institution.

Olive oil and vegetables are central to the Mediterranean diet.

The Last Supper (1494–1499), Leonardo da Vinci, Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan

Michelangelo's David (1501–1504), Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence

The Birth of Venus (1484–1486), Sandro Botticelli, Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Dante shown holding a copy of the Divine Comedy, next to the entrance to Hell, the mount of Purgatory and the city of Florence, with the spheres of Heaven above, in Michelino's fresco, 1465

Niccolò Machiavelli, founder of modern political science and ethics

Pinocchio is one of the world's most translated books and a canonical piece of children's literature.

Clockwise from top left: Thomas Aquinas, proponent of natural theology and the Father of Thomism; Giordano Bruno, one of the major scientific figures of the Western world; Cesare Beccaria, considered the Father of criminal justice and modern criminal law; and Maria Montessori, credited with the creation of the Montessori education

Statues of Pantalone and Harlequin, two stock characters from the Commedia dell'arte, in the Museo Teatrale alla Scala

Dario Fo, one of the most widely performed playwrights in modern theatre, received international acclaim for his highly improvisational style.

Giacomo Puccini, Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Turandot, are among the most frequently worldwide performed in the standard repertoire

Luciano Pavarotti, considered one of the finest tenors of the 20th century and the "King of the High Cs"

Giorgio Moroder, pioneer of Italo disco and electronic dance music, is known as the "Father of disco".

The Azzurri in 2012. Football is the most popular sport in Italy.

Starting in 1909, the Giro d'Italia is the Grands Tours' second oldest.

A Ferrari SF21 by Scuderia Ferrari, the most successful Formula One team

Prada shop at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan

The traditional recipe for spaghetti with tomato and basil sauce

The Frecce Tricolori, with the smoke trails representing the national colours of Italy, during the celebrations of the Festa della Repubblica

The Venice Film Festival is the oldest film festival in the world.

The country is the ninth-largest by nominal GDP (third in the European Union), the eighth-largest by national wealth and the third-largest by central bank gold reserve.

Kentucky

State in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South, bordered by Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to the east; Tennessee to the south; and Missouri to the west.

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace near Hodgenville

Kentucky's regions (click on image for color-coding information)

Lake Cumberland is the largest artificial American lake east of the Mississippi River by volume.

Once an industrial wasteland, Louisville's reclaimed waterfront now features thousands of trees and miles of walking trails.

Red River Gorge is one of Kentucky's most visited places.

Forest at Otter Creek Outdoor Recreation Area, Meade County, Kentucky

Lexington Theological Seminary (then College of the Bible), 1904

The best selling car in the United States, the Toyota Camry, is manufactured in Georgetown, Kentucky.

The best selling truck in the United States, the Ford F-Series, is manufactured in Louisville, Kentucky.

Spring running of Keeneland in Lexington, KY

William T. Young Library at the University of Kentucky, Kentucky's flagship university.

The J.B. Speed School of Engineering at the University of Louisville, Kentucky's urban research university.

At 484 mi long, Kentucky Route 80 is the longest route in Kentucky, pictured here west of Somerset.

High Bridge over the Kentucky River was the tallest rail bridge in the world when it was completed in 1877.

A barge hauling coal in the Louisville and Portland Canal, the only manmade section of the Ohio River

The Kentucky State Capitol building in Frankfort

A map showing Kentucky's six congressional districts

Treemap of the popular vote by county, 2016 presidential election

Old Louisville is the largest Victorian Historic neighborhood in the United States.

The U.S. 23 Country Music Highway Museum in Paintsville provides background on the country music artists from Eastern Kentucky.

Kentucky's Churchill Downs hosts the Kentucky Derby.

Fort Knox, a United States Army post best known as the site of the United States Bullion Depository, which is used to house a large portion of the United States official gold reserves, is located in Kentucky between Louisville and Elizabethtown.

Nazi Germany

The German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a dictatorship.

Germany's territorial control at its greatest extent during World War II (late 1942):
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Adolf Hitler became Germany's head of state, with the title of Führer und Reichskanzler, in 1934.

While the traditional German states were not formally abolished (excluding Lübeck in 1937), their constitutional rights and sovereignty were eroded and ultimately ended. Prussia was already under federal administration when Hitler came to power, providing a model for the process.

Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda

A Nazi propaganda poster proclaiming that Danzig is German

German soldiers march near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, 14 June 1940

Death and destruction during the Battle of Stalingrad, October 1942

German refugees in Bedburg, near Kleve, 19 February 1945

Map of the Greater German Reich with administrative divisions set by the Nazi Party, 1944

Public execution of 54 Poles in Rożki, Masovian Voivodeship (near Radom), German-occupied Poland, 1942

Heinrich Himmler, Hitler and Viktor Lutze perform the Nazi salute at the Nuremberg Rally, September 1934

Hitler, Göring, Goebbels and Rudolf Hess during a military parade in 1933

Chart showing the pseudo-scientific racial divisions used in the racial policies of Nazi Germany

A meeting of the four jurists who imposed Nazi ideology on the legal system of Germany (left to right: Roland Freisler, Franz Schlegelberger, Otto Georg Thierack, and Curt Rothenberger)

A column of tanks and other armoured vehicles of the Panzerwaffe near Stalingrad, 1942

IG Farben synthetic oil plant under construction at Buna Werke (1941). This plant was part of the complex at Auschwitz concentration camp.

(from left) Hitler; Robert Ley, head of the German Labour Front; Ferdinand Porsche, armaments manufacturer; and Hermann Göring, head of the Four Year Plan (1942)

Woman with Ostarbeiter badge at the IG Farben plant in Auschwitz

German loot stored at Schlosskirche Ellingen, Bavaria (April 1945)

Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses, April 1933. The posters say "Germans! Defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews!"

Poster from the Nazi Party's Office of Racial Policy: "60 000 RM is what this person with hereditary illness costs the community in his lifetime. Fellow citizen, that is your money too."

A wagon piled high with corpses outside the crematorium in the Buchenwald concentration camp liberated by the U.S. Army, 1945

The Nazi salute in school (1934): children were indoctrinated at an early age.

Young women of the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls) practising gymnastics in 1941

Statues representing the ideal body were erected in the streets of Berlin for the 1936 Summer Olympics.

Prisoner barracks at Dachau Concentration Camp, where the Nazis established a dedicated clergy barracks for clerical opponents of the regime in 1940

General Erich Hoepner at the Volksgerichtshof in 1944

A Nazi book burning on 10 May 1933 in Berlin, as books by Jewish and leftist authors are burned

Plans for Berlin called for the Volkshalle (People's Hall) and a triumphal arch to be built at either end of a wide boulevard.

Leni Riefenstahl (behind cameraman) at the 1936 Summer Olympics

Defendants in the dock at the Nuremberg trials

Gold reserves and other foreign holdings were seized from the national banks of occupied nations, while large "occupation costs" were usually imposed.

Romanian Treasure

The Romanian Treasure (Tezaurul României) is a collection of valuable objects and the gold reserves (~120 tonnes) of the Romanian government sent to Russia for safekeeping during World War I.

Taiwan

Country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south.

Fort Zeelandia, the Governor's residence in Dutch Formosa

Japanese colonial soldiers march Taiwanese captured after the Tapani Incident in 1915 from the Tainan jail to court.

General Chen Yi (right) accepting the receipt of General Order No. 1 from Rikichi Andō (left), the last Japanese Governor-General of Taiwan, in Taipei City Hall

Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Kuomintang from 1925 until his death in 1975

With Chiang Kai-shek, US president Dwight D. Eisenhower waved to crowds during his visit to Taipei in June 1960.

In 1988, Lee Teng-hui became the first president of the Republic of China born in Taiwan and was the first to be directly elected in 1996.

Student protest in Taipei against a controversial trade agreement with China in March 2014

A satellite image of Taiwan, showing it is mostly mountainous in the east, with gently sloping plains in the west. The Penghu Islands are west of the main island.

The flag used by Taiwan at the Olympic Games, where it competes as "Chinese Taipei" (中華台北)

Taiwan's popularly elected president resides in the Presidential Office Building, Taipei, originally built in the Japanese era for colonial governors

Tsai Ing-wen, President of the Republic of China

Su Tseng-chang, Premier of the Republic of China

Taiwanese-born Tangwai ("independent") politician Wu San-lien (second left) celebrates with supporters his landslide victory of 65.5 per cent in Taipei's first mayoral election in January 1951.

Results from an identity survey conducted each year from 1992 to 2020 by the Election Study Center, National Chengchi University. Responses are Taiwanese (green), Chinese (red) or Both Taiwanese and Chinese (hatched). No response is shown as grey.

Republic of China Army’s Thunderbolt-2000, a multiple rocket launcher

Taipei 101 held the world record for the highest skyscraper from 2004 to 2010.

China Airlines aircraft line-up at Taoyuan International Airport

Population density map of Taiwan (residents per square kilometre)

Original geographic distributions of Taiwanese indigenous peoples

Most commonly used home language in each area, darker in proportion to the lead over the next most common

Apo Hsu and the NTNU Symphony Orchestra onstage in the National Concert Hall

Taiwanese writer, literary critic and politician Wang Tuoh

Yani Tseng with the 2011 Women's British Open trophy

Tai Tzu-ying, the current world No.1 in BWF at the 2018 Chinese Taipei Open

St. John's Catholic Church in Banqiao District, New Taipei

In addition, the ROC government took to Taipei many national treasures and much of China's gold and foreign currency reserves.