I'm straying a bit off course with this but there's a logic in there somewhere...I think....
Reading this thread and feeling what i'll call the "ping pong effect" of going back and forth on what I would or would not have done with whatever gold coins I had in 1933 (had I been alive then) after Executive Order 6102 goes into effect I end up kind of agreeing that I would have probably turned in my coins for the the roughly $20 per oz rate that was established at that time. As the country was reeling from the Depression and FDR trying to get New Deal legislation passed, the gold turn in was just part of several initiatives aimed at righting the economic ship. Rather than get into all the specifics of whether that EO (and the ensuing legislation like the Gold Reserve Act, etc) should have been allowed to happen, the real rate of wealth transfer of the gold turn in as a function of real vs nominal GDP (which was a smaller drop in the total bucket, economically speaking, yet its ripples did translate to real double digit GDP growth for the next four years, growth that would probably not have happened at that rate under normal monetary conditions) blah blah... I decided to just think to myself "why hoard?" and played out scenarios of what really would have happened.
Ok its 1933, the crash, the Depression, I see the economy going to hell in a handbasket and now I have to turn in my Gold (for what appears to be a now commodity-less backed piece of paper that leaves me feeling less than comforted)...I think other places outside the U.S. would probably still take gold bullion/melt value of whatever I have in coins/bars, so maybe I should cut my losses and get the hell out the country...ok stop right there: How many people (even those defying the law and hoarding their gold) were really in a position to do anything about it? i.e. leave the US if they thought things were too bad or really be in a financial position during the Depression to not have to watch every single cent spent and to make the simple deduction..."uh, so gold is basically worthless now? but this piece of paper will be accepted everywhere for goods and services and pay debts owed? Yea let me take that route).
As was noted earlier, the face value on gold coins ($10 and $20 especially was a lot of money then and many did not simply have a whole bunch of gold lying around to start with) people really did not have much of a choice. So when faced with little option, yea sure some people hoarded (more than $100 that was still legally allowed after the EO) because they just didnt know what was going to happen and panicked. I imagine most people just wanted to get back to a more stable way of living and collectively more people had that line of thinking to get the country back on track than to think of an even worse economic alternative.
In any event, I would not have wanted to be around (rich or poor to be honest) during such a tumultuous period on many levels. While we can debate that today's outlook is not so bright either and that something similar could be coming on the horizon, currently I feel fairly confident in my current economic/banking needs.
Having said all of the above, I do hope more than a few folks did do a bit of hoarding and maybe just maybe I might find some of that
Some of the stories from the 60's on that I heard were interesting enough! Guys taking silver into Canada to sell by the trunk load. I don't remember the details to why they were doing that. Maybe, it was to get around some law here?
