The gold bullion recall in 1933 was carried out by the United States government under Executive Order 6102 in response to the economic circumstances of the Great Depression. All privately held gold coins and bullion were handed in and owners paid $20.67 an ounce. Gold was subsequently pegged at $35 an ounce thus devaluating the US Currency and enriching the United States Treasury with the more-valuable confiscated gold.
In 1933, there were teeth in the order to hand in gold. There was a law from 1917, during the First World War, called the Trading With the Enemy Act, which the government amended in March of 1933. This law specified punishment of up to 10 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine for violating the order to hand in gold.
Executive Order 6102 specified that gold in coin collections was exempt from confiscation. Today, as economic times are bad again, a practical consideration in investing in gold is whether to invest in gold bullion or rare gold coins.
More than seventy years have passed and the nation and the world are in a recession, the worst since the Great Depression. In the intervening years there has been no law passed banning the confiscation of gold. There is no constitution right in the United States to own gold. The only legal precedent is that in 1933 rare gold coin collections were exempt from the gold bullion recall.
It may well be a better idea to buy rare gold coins based on the potential of a new gold confiscation. However, it also may be a better idea based upon the tendency of rare gold coins to out perform gold bullion as an investment if held over the years.
