Recent anomalies in the gold market, including delivery delays in London, repeated record highs, and unusually large shipments of bullion to US vaults, have led precious metals analysts to speculate about an official revaluation of the price of gold.
If the “deep storage gold” on the US Treasury's balance sheet were to be increased from its current $42.22 per ounce to improve the country's fiscal position or borrowing capacity, the move would constitute a devaluation of the US dollar against gold.
A revaluation of gold is not out of the question. It has happened before.
It could happen again despite what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent did or did not imply earlier this month when he suggested that the Trump administration “is going to monetize the asset side of the US balance sheet for the American people.”
Gold revaluations and dollar devaluations have occurred several times in US 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 ratio of silver to gold from 15 to 1 to 16 to 1. By signing the law, 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 price of gold in the country 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 monetary metals.
Since the nation's founding, the United States had been governed by a bimetallic standard, and the dollar was defined as 371.25 grains of pure silver. By reducing the gold content of the $10 Eagle coins from 247.5 to 232.2 grains of fine gold, Jackson and his supporters in Congress altered the gold-silver ratio.