Talk:Gold standard

Dates of adoption of a gold standard

 * 1717: Kingdom of Great Britain 'de facto' following Isaac Newton's revision of the mint ratio, at 21 shillings to a guinea of 129.438 grains (8.38 g), 22 karat crown gold.
 * 1760: The Bremen thaler gold worth $1/undefined$th a gold pistole of 6.0 g fine gold; the only state within the German Confederacy to introduce the gold standard before the introduction of the 1873 mark.
 * 1821: United Kingdom de jure at 20 shillings (£1) to a sovereign of 123.27447 grains (7.98805 g), 22 karat gold.
 * 1854: Portugal at 1000 réis to 1.62585 g gold.
 * 1858: Canadian dollar, at par with the U.S. gold dollar (1.50463 g gold), and with the British gold sovereign worth $4.86$2/3$.
 * 1865: Newfoundland, the only country in the British Empire to introduce its own gold coin apart from the British gold sovereign.
 * 1873: German Empire at 2,790 Marks (ℳ) to 1 kg gold.
 * 1873: United States dollar de facto from bimetallic to gold only, at 1.50463 g gold or 20.67 dollars to 1 troy oz (31.1 g) gold. See Coinage Act of 1873.
 * 1873: Latin Monetary Union (Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, France), from bimetallic to gold only, at 31 francs to 9.0 g gold
 * 1875: Scandinavian monetary union (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) at 2,480 kroner to 1 kg gold.
 * 1875: Dutch guilder at 0.6048 g gold.
 * 1876: Spain at 31 pesetas to 9.0 g gold.
 * 1878: Grand Duchy of Finland at 31 marks to 9.0 g gold.
 * 1881: Argentina at 1 peso to 1.4516 g gold.
 * 1885: Egypt.
 * 1892: Austrian Empire at 3,280 Austro-Hungarian kronen to 1 kg gold.
 * 1897: Russia at 31 rubles to 24.0 g gold.
 * 1897: Japan at 1 yen devalued to 0.75 g gold.
 * 1898: India at £1 to 15 Indian rupees.
 * 1900: United States, de jure (see Gold Standard Act).
 * 1903: The Philippines at US$1 = 2 pesos.
 * 1905: Mexico at 1 peso to 0.75 g gold.
 * 1906: The Straits dollar at £1 to 8$4/7$ dollars.
 * 1908: Siam Gold Exchange/pound sterling.

English POV
Based on French franc, I gather that since 1800, France has been on the gold standard, using a bimetallic standard where silver was used for small change. Even timeline in the discussion fails to note that. Similarly, the Spanish real page indicates that Spain has been using a fixed gold equivalent for its currency since 1566, when the value of silver was also fixed. Can anyone improve the article, so that a reader could understand how did Newton's bimetallism innovated beyond the Spanish bimetallism, and why was the British pound more of a gold standard than the gold napoleons? As is, it seems the article was written with a British POV.

Reversion of my edit about disagreements with the view that the gold standard caused the great depression
User Thenightaway reverted my edit with the note:

> does not relate to the consensus view about the role of the gold standard

This is nonsensical. There is no reason my edit needs to relate to the consensus view. The purpose is to make it clear that it isn't a unanimous view. I have added multiple sources for this. Don't just delete things on wikipedia because you don't agree with it. Fresheneesz (talk) 20:50, 21 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Your addition of the line "but many disagree with this view" is not supported by the sources you're adding. Thenightaway (talk) 20:58, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
 * If that is your only concern, it could easily have been recorded.  SPECIFICO talk 21:14, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
 * OK I had a closer look. There are not RS to support any statement at all about the gold standard, as far as I can tell. SPECIFICO talk 22:05, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I think the statement that none of the sources that I included reliably support the very short clarifying statement I added deserves to have some reasoning given. One of my sources is David Wheelock, and economist at the St Louis Federal Reserve, and the source I referenced from him is published on their website. He says 'Economists continue to study the Great Depression because they still disagree on what caused it.' Thenightaway claims that the Journal of Business & Economic Policy is "predatory". I see no evidence of that, so it would be great if some could be supplied if its to be claimed that its not a reliable source.
 * I'm not inserting any extraordinary claim here, only the clarification that many economists disagree with the view that gold standard caused the great depression . There are other major schools of thought about the causes of the great depression, so its highly misleading to simply say "the idea that gold caused the great depression is the consensus view" without qualification. Ignoring other views because this is an article about the gold standard is not reasonable when considering the misleading quality of the current wording.
 * Furthermore, Thenightaway also reverted my edits improving the readability of the references in the source. This is just adding insult to injury and is completely inappropriate. Thenightaway, you are edging on edit warring. Edit warring is not acceptable on wikipedia. You should not have reverted my edits without attempting to engage in a discussion. And you certainly shouldn't have done it twice. You should be aware that doing this only a couple more times could earn you a temporary ban.
 * Fresheneesz (talk) 01:21, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I could come up with a number of sources to support the idea that many economists disagree the gold standard caused the great depression. The fact that some people have claimed this to be the "consensus view" is indisputable, but whether it is actually the consensus view or not is quite disputable. Friedman and Schwartz famously disagreed - and they weren't fringe economists. A paper from Berkeley economists Hsieh and Romer concur. Here's a whole article about this. Fresheneesz (talk) 03:19, 23 August 2022 (UTC)


 * The consensus view is that the gold standard made the Great Depression worse. The quote "Economists continue to study the Great Depression because they still disagree on what caused it" does not have anything to do with the consensus view on whether the gold standard made the Great Depression worse. The Forbes op-ed by a guy in a creationist think tank is not a RS per WP:FORBESCON. The Hsieh and Romer article can be added to the page as long as the findings of the article are covered accurately. Thenightaway (talk) 10:12, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Political issue
Let's be sure we maintain a neutral point of view. This topic is once again a political issue. There's a bill in play in the US House of Representatives to re-establish the gold standard (H.R. 9157). Same guy tried the same thing in 2019 (H.R. 2558). And then there was Senator Ron Paul years ago. Cordially, BuzzWeiser196 (talk) 14:41, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
 * New Bill Introduced to Bring the US Back to the Gold Standard. BuzzWeiser196 (talk) 14:56, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Reignition of Gold Standard
Hello! I don't see any mention in this article about current advocate of the gold standard Keith Weiner and his company Monetary Metals which pays a yield on gold, paid in gold, in an attempt to give individuals and institutions a way to start their own personal gold standard. Should this be noted on this page as the most recent attempt by a private company to restart a gold based ecosystem? The first Gold Bond in 87 years would be noteworthy for this page I would think? Gold good (talk) 22:10, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 July 2023
Minor edit (grammar), under section Great Depression, change "... Central European banking crisis led Germany and Austria suspend gold convertibility and impose exchange controls." to "... Central European banking crisis led Germany and Austria to suspend gold convertibility and impose exchange controls." Anodeunheard (talk) 18:09, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ - FlightTime  ( open channel ) 18:27, 12 July 2023 (UTC)