19th Century
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1800

Gold price: £4.25 (£4.4s.11½d) or US$20.67 per troy ounce fine

Gold/silver ratio: 1:15.68 (London)

Annual production: ± 600,000 ounces, of which Brazil and Latin America 400,000,
Russia 55,000, North America 40,000

 

1803 Napoleon stabilised French currency with a bimetallic ratio of 1:15.5. Issued Napoleon d'or coins of 0.1867 oz (6.45 grams) at 900 fine, which became favourites with French investors. The Paris mint used 1.2 million ounces of gold in the years 1803-7.
1810 The House of Commons Select Committee on the High Price of Bullion (see box).

 

1810 Bullion Committee

Since the suspension of gold payments against notes by the Bank of England in 1797, the gold price had risen from its stable level of £4.4s.11½d per fine troy ounce (or £3.17s.10½d in the 916 'standard' gold in which the market then traded) to the equivalent of £4.18s.3½d (£4.10s. standard). A letter by David Ricardo set off a parliamentary enquiry that J. K. Galbraith called "the most famous in all history on money and its management". The twenty-nine witnesses included, from the London bullion market, Aaron Goldsmid from the brokers Mocatta, Nathan Mayer Rothschild (appearing incognito), and John Humble of the Bank of England's Bullion Office. The evidence provided a unique insight into the gold trade in London. The key factor, however, was that the Bank of England, without the obligation of paying gold against notes, had printed them too freely. The Bullion Committee concluded there was "an excess in the paper circulation … (due to) … insufficient check and control in the issue of paper from the Bank of England; and originally to the suspension of cash payments, which removed the natural and true control". The Committee urged cash payments in gold be resumed within two years. In fact, full resumption did not occur until 1821.

 

1812 Shortage of gold in London to pay Wellington's army fighting Napoleon pushed the gold price over £5 per ounce for standard gold (£5.9s.8d fine gold). The high price even attracted 65,000 ounces in Indian gold coin to London.
1814/15 Wellington defeated Napoleon in Spain, and gold eased, only to jump to £5.7s.0d standard (£5.16s.9½d fine) in March 1815 when Napoleon escaped from exile in Elba. After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in August 1815 gold returned to normal levels.
1816 In Britain, the Coinage Act of 1816 made the gold standard official, with a new coin, the sovereign, worth £1, weighing 0.25 troy ounces (7.77 grams) at 916 fine. The coins were the sole standard of value and unlimited legal tender.
1817 The first sovereigns were issued, the mint using 1.1 million ounces.
1821 Full resumption of cash payments in gold by the Bank of England.
1823 Czar Alexander I set up a commission to encourage Russian gold exploration. During the next seven years output around Ekaterinburg in the Ural mountains increased from 48,000 ounces annually to 190,000 ounces.
1835 In Brazil the Mineracao Morro Velho mine opened in Minas Gerais province; it is the world's oldest continually worked mine, now owned by AngloGold.
1837 In the US an Act of Congress fixed weights of gold and silver coins in a ratio of 1:16, with the $10 Eagle at 258 grains (0.65 ounces/20.2 grams) at 900 fine. The US mint resumed coinage of $10 Eagle, which had not been struck since 1804, although $5 half Eagle and $2.50 quarter Eagle had been minted.
1842 Russian output was over 350,000 ounces, with at least 58 alluvial deposits being worked in Siberia. By 1846 production had risen to 800,000 ounces.
1848 James Marshall found gold at Sutter's Mill, on the junction of the American and Sacramento rivers in California, triggering the great gold rush.
1850 World gold output was up to 4.4 m.oz, a completely new dimension. Ultimately, ten times as much gold was produced in the second half of the 19th century as in the first (see box).
1851 Gold discovered in New South Wales, Australia, by Edward Hammond Hargraves, with finds at Ballarat and Bendigo in Victoria later the same year. Australian output peaked around 3 m.oz in 1856.
Gold Output

(thousand troy ounces)

1846
1850
1855
Australia
-
-
2,855.8
N. America
55.5
2,852.0
3,593.4
Latin America
250.0
288.7
235.8
Russia
803.8
983.0
565.8
Others
275.0
280.0
280.0
Total
1,384.8
4,403.7
6,530.8
1852 The London market took most of the Australian gold, and membership grew with Pixley & Haggard and Samuel Montagu as new brokers; N.M. Rothschild took over the Royal Mint refinery, Henry Raphael set up a new refinery (good delivery status in 1856) and Johnson Matthey were made acceptable assayers to the Bank of England.
1855 Rapid expansion of gold coin circulation, especially in the US, Britain and France (see box). By 1860 gold coin in circulation or held by commercial banks in major countries amounted to 74 m.oz, compared with 42 m.oz before the gold rushes.
Gold Coin Minting

(million troy ounces)

1845-9
1850-4
1855-9
UK
4.35
7.23
5.59
France
0.72
11.50
26.62
USA
1.97
10.48
6.07
1860 In Russia gold coin issue was 4.26 m.oz from 1860-4, double the previous five years.
1863 India imported 2 m.oz, mostly sovereigns; total imports were 13.4 m.oz in the 1860s.
1871 Germany issued a new currency, the mark, based on gold, minting over 11.7 m.oz of gold coins in 1872-3. Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Holland, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden also joined the gold standard during the 1870s.
1876 This switch from bimetallic or silver standards to gold was reviewed by the House of Commons Select Committee on the Depreciation of Silver, which analysed gold production, coin fabrication and central bank stocks. Under the gold standard, most gold was in circulation rather than in official holdings. Between 1873 and 1895 over 186 m.oz of gold coin was struck worldwide.
1877 Homestake mine opened at Lead, South Dakota; its output totalled 40 m.oz by 1999.
1886 Royal Commission on Gold & Silver in London studied the changed relationship between gold and silver, since the formal bimetallic link broke down in the 1870s (the ratio was now 1:22). Central bank gold stocks had risen to 49 m.oz and gold coin in circulation to 110 m.oz. The Commission came out for a gold standard. Discovery of the gold-bearing reefs of the Witwatersrand basin in South Africa.
1887 MacArthur-Forrest process for extracting gold from ore with cyanide was patented, making development of the deep, low grade South African deposits viable.
1893 Gold found at Kalgoorlie by Paddy Hannan; rush started to Western Australia which produced 3.7 m.oz over next seven years.
India gold imports

1800-1899:

± 35 million ounces

1896 Gold rush to the Yukon in Canada; output 2.4 m.oz in three years. US presidential election key issue was bimetallism, for which Democrat William Jennings Bryan, Nebraska, campaigned - and lost.
1897 Japan went on the gold standard.
1898 South African output reached 3.8 m.oz. World output rose in 1890s from 5 to 15 m.oz, then slowed as South African mines were closed by the Boer War.