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Germany’s central bank completed Wednesday its plan to bring back home 54,000 gold bars it had in vaults located in New York and Paris to beneath its Frankfurt headquarters, three years ahead of schedule.
The Bundesbank, one of the world’s top bullion holders, secretly repatriated 674 tonnes from the vaults of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Banque de France, the French central bank, over the past four years in one of the biggest operations of its type.
Germany’s central bank now holds half of the country’s gold
Each of the 53,780 bars weighs 12.5kg and is worth about $520,000 (€440,000). In total, the haul is worth €23.7 billion ($28bn) and its arrival means that just over half of all Bundesbank gold is now stored in its own vaults in Frankfurt.
The lender said it “thoroughly and exhaustively” tested all of the bars after they arrived back in Frankfurt and “no irregularities came to light with regard to the authenticity, fineness or weight of the bars.”
Source: Bundesbank.
Germany began building most of its gold holdings in the 1950s, when trade surpluses were exchanged for gold under the Bretton Woods system that linked the US dollar to the precious metal. That led to a build-up of gold in vaults overseas, especially in New York, under the Federal Reserve.
During the Cold War the Bundesbank wanted to keep its gold in the west in case of an invasion from the Soviet Union.
Source: Bundesbank.
But at the height of the Eurozone crisis in 2012, the German public grew uneasy about keeping their gold abroad and the central bank yield to pressure began shipping its gold back.
Not all of the Bundesbank gold reserves are now in Germany. A big chunk — 1,236 tonnes — will remain in New York indefinitely, the bank said. A smaller portion, 432 tonnes, will be held at the Bank of England, in London.
6 Comments
Sunshine Johnston
id be drilling each one of em, the only thing you can trust right now is not to trust anyone
miner 49er
Sunshine, I agree. Also notice the flimsy shelving units.
Altaf
Conspiracy theory :
Read “A big chunk – 1236 tons will remain in NY indefinitely” in conjunction with theories flying around that US has no gold at all. In fact I say there was no gold at all. Under the risk of losing credibility, the 674 tons of gold transferred to Germany may belong to other countries. May be US told Germany (in secret) that it can not ship any more gold, lest other nations will find out about their missing gold. May be that is the reason for the statement of indefinite holding of remaining gold in NY.
Unless each country ship out their gold from US, the conspiracy theory will die.
MunhuMunyurwa
Continuing with the Conspiracy theory line: Who else has gold held in NY? And could Germany be getting ready for some imminent financial crisis……Financial Crisis (Black Monday) 1987, Asian Financial Crisis (1997), Subprime mortgage crisis 2007……Bank of America and others warn of stock market collapse
Nelson Spear
My math may be off.
If each gold bar weighs 12.5kg and there are 32.15 troy ounces per kilogram, wouldn’t that make each gold bar worth about $520,000 and not $5,200?
Wogger wabbit
Folks, Having worked in gold industry and spent lots time in gold rooms, the reported facts and photo sound/look
fine. 400 oz bars are over 12kg, 100 bars per rack is 1,200 kg. No conspiracy here, unless aliens steal them.