The Golden Hoard

Gold is no longer the coin of any realm, but it remains the one truly international money. It is the solid underpinning of central banks and national treasuries, the most favored way of paying debts among nations. Though no longer the real measure of a nation's wealth, it can set heads to shaking by its movements, as they shook again last week when the U.S. announced a $70 million gold outflow in June (double the loss in May). Despite all this interest, no one knows exactly how much gold the world has. In a new report, Barclays Bank of London has come as close as possible to a definitive answer: 2.1 billion oz., or 72,000 tons worth some $75 billion.

To reach this figure, Barclays panned for gold statistics as far back as 1493, when Columbus returned with his first haul of New World treasure. The total includes all the known gold output since then--ignoring loss from wear, which is presumed to be slight--and an educated guess about recent but unreported Russian production. Despite the widespread departure from the gold standard during the early 1930s, demand for gold keeps climbing, and so does output. Last year the world's gold production reached 39.2 million oz., excluding Russia, compared with 24.2 million oz. a decade ago. South Africa alone accounts for 70% of that output.

Two-thirds of the world's gold is now held as monetary reserves, about $20 billion being legally tied down as partial backing for paper currencies; the remaining one-third is absorbed by industrial arts and private ownership. The U.S., with 446 million oz. of monetary gold, has by far the largest holdings. Next: West Germany (110 million oz.), France (91 million), Switzerland (81 million), Britain (71 million). As for Russia, how much gold the country holds has become such an international mystery that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency sniffed around, recently concluded that Russian monetary reserves must run about $2 billion, v. the U.S.'s $15.5 billion. London's gold experts believe that the CIA count considerably shortchanged the Russians; they estimate that the Russian gold hoard is as high as $8 billion.

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