Thursday, November 20, 2008

Ft. Knox, Kentucky

Ft. Knox Military Reservation south and west of Louisville is the site of the United States Bullion Depository. No, we did not get to visit! Absolutely no visitors are permitted!

The Building

The Depository building is a two story basement and attic building constructed of granite, steel and concrete. Inside is a two level steel and concrete vault that is divided into compartments. The vault door weighs more than 20 tons! The building is equipped with the latest and most modern protective devices along with security people.

The Gold

Gold is stored in the form of standard mint bars of almost pure gold or coin gold bars resulting from melting gold coins. They are about the size of an ordinary building brick. Each bar contains approximately 400 troy oz of gold worth $16,888. This amount is based on the statutory price of $42.22 per oz. There is 147.3 million ounces of gold stored there now. The most stored in the last century was 649.6 million ounces on December 31, 1941.

Additional Articles Stored

Other valuable articles have been stored in the Depository at different times. The Declaration of Independence, US Constitution, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, and three volumes of the Gutenberg Bible.

Other countries have stored items, also. This included the Magna Carta. The crown, sword, scepter, orb & cape of St. Stephen, King of Hungary was stored until returned to the government in 1978.

Goldfinger

The model of the Bullion Depository that was used to brief the henchmen on the attack on the building in the James Bond movie, Goldfinger, is displayed in the Patton Military Museum. That is our next stop!

Thanks for "traveling" with us!
Prairie Schooners

1 comment:

Dagmar said...

Waaay cool!!! That sounds so awesome! I wonder why no visitors are allowed...:D