A gold certificate in general is a certificate of ownership that gold owners hold instead of storing the actual gold. It has both a historic meaning as a US paper currency (1863–1933) and a current meaning as a way to invest in gold.
Banks may issue gold certificates for gold which is allocated (non-fungible) or unallocated (fungible or pooled). Unallocated gold certificates are a form of fractional reserve banking and do not guarantee an equal exchange for metal in the event of a run on the issuing bank's gold on deposit. Allocated gold certificates should be correlated with specific numbered bars, although it is difficult to determine whether a bank is improperly allocating a single bar to more than one party.
Read more about Gold Certificate: Historic US Gold Certificates (1863-1933), Complete Series Catalogue
Famous quotes containing the words gold and/or certificate:
“‘She has got rings on every finger,
Round one of them she have got three.
She have gold enough around her middle
To buy Northumberland that belongs to thee.”
—Unknown. Young Beichan (l. 61–64)
“God gave the righteous man a certificate entitling him to food and raiment, but the unrighteous man found a facsimile of the same in God’s coffers, and appropriated it, and obtained food and raiment like the former. It is one of the most extensive systems of counterfeiting that the world has seen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)