Saturday, April 12, 2008

Gold Certificate




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 (1882-1933) and a current meaning as a way to invest in gold.
The gold certificate was used from 1882 to 1933 in the United States as a form of paper currency. Each certificate gave its holder title to its corresponding amount of gold coin. Therefore, this type of paper currency was intended to represent actual gold coinage. In 1933 the practice of redeeming these notes for gold coins was ended by the U.S. government and until 1964 it was actually illegal to possess these notes (in 1964 these restrictions were lifted, primarily to allow collectors to own examples legally, however the issue technically converted to standard 'legal tender' with no connection to gold).

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