Recent anomalies in the gold market, including delivery delays in London, repeated record highs and unusually large bullion shipments to U.S. vaults have led precious metals analysts to speculate on an official revaluation of the gold price.

If the "deep storage gold" on the U.S. Treasury's balance sheet were to be increased from its current $42.22 an ounce to improve the country's fiscal position or borrowing capacity, the move would constitute a devaluation of the U.S. dollar against gold.

Gold revaluation is not out of the question. It has happened before.

It could happen again despite what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent did or did not hint at earlier this month when he suggested that the Trump administration "is going to monetize the asset side of the U.S. balance sheet for the American people."

Gold revaluations and dollar devaluations have occurred several times in U.S. history.

President Jackson revalued gold against the silver dollar

The passage of the Coinage Act of 1834 revalued gold against the silver dollar by raising the weight ratio of silver to gold from 15 to 1 to 16 to 1. Upon signing the act, President Andrew Jackson raised the official price of gold to $20.69 per troy ounce, up from $19.39 previously.

It was the first revaluation of the country's gold price since the gold-silver ratio was established by the Coinage Act of 1792, which defined the dollar in terms of the purity and weight of the monetary metals.

From the nation's founding, the United States was governed by a bimetallic standard and the dollar was defined as 371.25 grains of pure silver. By reducing the content of the $10 gold Eagle coins from 247.5 to 232.2 grains of fine gold, Jackson and his supporters in Congress altered the gold-silver ratio.

Jackson was a hard currency advocate and deficit hawk who despised the central bank. In 1832 he ended the interest-bearing Second Bank of the United States by refusing to renew its charter and eliminating the national debt in 1835. It was the first and only time the nation was not burdened by the fiscal albatross.

While Jackson's gold revaluation did not contribute to his phenomenal feats, it motivated gold miners in Georgia and North Carolina , increased the circulation of gold coins and boosted gold imports, such as the influx occurring today.

Precious metals are moving to higher prices. They always have and always will. 

The Coinage Act of 1837 introduced another slight adjustment in the silver-to-gold ratio. By minimally reducing the weight and standard size of the silver dollar, the act reduced the official price of gold by two cents, to $20.67 per troy ounce. It was a rare case of gold devaluing against the dollar. 

The price of gold remained at that level in the Treasury ledger for nearly a century. 

President Roosevelt devalued the dollar against gold

In the midst of the Great Depression, dollar devaluation was a centerpiece of federal policy aimed at promoting economic recovery. 

After President Franklin Roosevelt banned private ownership of most monetary gold in 1933, his administration took deliberate steps to encourage gold production, increase gold imports, and raise the price of gold at the expense of the U.S. dollar.

"The United States must take firmly in hand control of the value of our dollar," Roosevelt said during a radio broadcast on October 22, 1933, before authorizing the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) "to buy newly mined gold in the United States at prices to be determined from time to time" and to "buy or sell gold on the world market."

Formed during the administration of President Herbert Hoover, the RFC was a government-sponsored lender of last resort, funded with $500 million in federal funds to stimulate recovery from the severe economic downturn.

In 1933, the corporation purchased 128 metric tons of gold for $134 million to increase its market price, devalue the dollar, increase commodity prices and expand U.S. exports. Through a series of purchases at increasingly higher prices, the RFC achieved a minimum gold price of around $34 an ounce.

In 1934, Roosevelt signed a proclamation setting the official price of gold at $35 a troy ounce. His measure devalued the dollar by 59 percent against gold, allowing the Federal Reserve to inflate the supply of fiat currency in an effort to revive the depressed economy.

President Nixon revalued gold twice in the early 1970s.

In an attempt to salvage the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement and combat deteriorating U.S. economic conditions, President Richard Nixon revalued gold twice in the early 1970s.

In 1971, against a backdrop of declining U.S. gold reserves, rising unemployment and increasing inflation, Nixon stopped exchanging the country's gold for dollars at $35 an ounce. While decoupling the dollar from gold halted the loss of the country's bullion reserves, the dollar remained overvalued compared to other currencies in the foreign exchange market, contributing to growing U.S. trade imbalances. 

In an effort to maintain dollar-gold convertibility, weaken the dollar and increase U.S. exports of raw materials, Nixon raised the official price of gold to $38 in 1972 and to $42.22 in 1973, which together devalued the U.S. currency by 20 percent. However, Nixon's devaluations did not preserve the international gold standard. 

Together, the demonetization of gold and the devaluation of the dollar allowed the U.S. government to spend and borrow fiat dollars relentlessly, leading to a depreciation of the currency against gold, the price of which soared to $800 an ounce in 1980.

Like his predecessors, who devalued gold, President Donald Trump could revalue it if his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) audit team confirms that U.S. depositories contain the 8,133 tons of bullion on the Treasury's books. They will also want to verify that the bullion, if present, is not legally encumbered in any way.

Now that gold is approaching $3,000 an ounce, the revaluation of the country's gold to the market price could provide Uncle Sam with a $770 billion bonanza to spend or extinguish outstanding obligations.

Most likely, the revalued gold will be used to inflate the currency and finance more debt. In that case, the revaluation would constitute a devaluation of the dollar against gold and further devalue the country's currency.

Either way, the revaluation could be a bonanza for gold fanatics. If the official price of gold were to be raised, the metal would almost certainly trade at higher levels, as it did six decades ago, provided gold ownership is not banned, God forbid, as it was in 1933.

Stuart Englert, Money Metals