Don't expect the U.S. to ever allow an audit of gold vault as the stored metal isn't even compatible with international standards

by Kenneth Schortgen, The Daily Economist:

Perhaps one of the primary reasons that the U.S. Treasury has not allowed an audit of its sovereign gold in over 50 years is due to the fact that it may not be compatible with international standards.  By this we mean a purity of .9999, or even the older standard of .999.
 

The United States doesn’t let anyone see its gold reserves. Even if the Treasury has the number of billions it claims, they are not tradable, warns Singapore’s BullionStar precious metals expert Ronan Manly. 

The US government claims to hold 8133.5 tonnes of physical gold in its official reserves. Fifty-eight percent is reportedly held in Fort Knox, Kentucky, 20 percent at West Point in New York State, 16 percent is said to be at the US Mint in Denver, Colorado and five percent is held at the NY Fed. 

“The entire story around the US gold reserves is opaque and secretive. There has never been a full independent audit of the US gold reserves, and the custodians of the gold, the US Mint and the Federal Reserve of New York will not let anybody into the vaults to view the gold or to count it,”Manly told RT. 

However, despite the numerous accusations against the US Treasury that it has much less gold than it claims, there is another reason, according to the expert – US gold is of bad quality. 

“Even the details that have been provided on the supposed US gold holdings show that a majority of the gold bars are low purity and in weights that don’t conform to the industry standard ‘Good Delivery” gold bar specifications,” says Manly. 

“So even if the US has the amount of gold it claims to have, most of this gold would not be acceptable for trading on the international market, and could only be used in swap transactions with other central banks that wished to swap Good Delivery gold bars for low purity and unusual weight US held gold bars,” he added.

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