Want to know just how much gold is really in Fort Knox?
Read on to verify just how much bullion the US stores in good ol’ Fort Knox, an English language idiom in its own time.
It makes sense to gain some gold exposure, as all eminent pointers indicate a steady climb in the metal’s value going forward.
Call on gold IRA pros who understand gold’s value and market performance, and get some of that yellow metal building wealth for you too.
Here’s the amount of bullion behind those walls, and a few snippets of Fort Knox history that might surprise you.
The United States Bullion Depository which is Fort Knox, Kentucky, is a secure storage facility for gold bullion.
It neither mints nor actively trades gold, but rather is simply a warehouse for the precious metal, albeit a very heavily guarded and protected one!
The amount of 147.3 million ounces has been a constant figure given out as the total amount of the gold bullion held at Fort Knox.
This is approximately half the US’ gold reserves, and that bullion along with other valuables is the amount stored at Fort Knox.
The figure of gold volume at Fort Knox has been constant because of the extremely limited “fiddling” with the gold bullion stored there.
Official gold reserves and question marks
Officially, regular audits that sample the purity of the gold are performed at intervals, but besides that, the gold is left pretty much alone.
There is some doubt about the efficiency and veracity of such gold audits (not least because the last legitimate, transparent audit was done in the 1950s), but it’s a safe bet that while it might fluctuate by a nominal amount, $6.2 billion in gold lies in the vaults of Fort Knox.
That’s already a problematic figure, however, as the gold is deemed a United States asset, and pegged at a “book value” of $42.22 an ounce.
That’s how the official figure comes out to around $6.2 billion.
If the volume of gold at Fort Knox is accurate, and taking today’s spot price average of around $1,900 an ounce, a more realistic value pans out be a staggering $279,870,000,000－two hundred and seventy-nine billion, eight hundred and seventy million dollars!
Conspiracy theories abound about the gold having been frittered away and, knowing politicians and bankers, there’s every chance some fiddling has taken place over the years, even on the hallowed soil of Fort Knox!
That said, who knows for sure?
When a facility is so secure that not even the auditors are allowed in nowadays it seems, it has to be surmised on face value and probability, as well as derived from official figures, that the gold bullion value at Fort Knox is what authorities say it is.
The government will exchange your dollars for gold valued at $42.22 an ounce, unfortunately, but that hoard’s market value is closer to a quarter trillion dollars, again assuming the holding amount is accurate.
Some Fort Knox snippets you didn’t know
Gold reserves in Fort Knox were at their highest in 1941 when the depository held some 649.6 million ounces as reserves.
That equates to a whopping one million, six hundred and twenty-four thousand 400 ounce gold bars－a hoard befitting even kings of old.
“Camp Knox” was designated a permanent US garrison in 1932, whereupon its name changed from “Camp” to “Fort”.
It was in 1936 that the actual depository construction began, and it’s of interest to know also that the vault door is a behemoth weighing in at around 20 tons!
You’ll need more than a weekend of explosives to blast through a door like that, and indeed it’s designed to be impervious to drilling, blasting, and even torch cutting.
There’s no reason Fort Knox should have all the fun, especially now as gold’s currency is rising and investors are revisiting the precious metal like a long-lost lover.
Also Read: How to Buy Gold – a Detailed Guide