1Vatican Nazi Gold Scandal
Following World War 2, Croatian concentration camp inmates' stolen gold and jewelry valued at millions of dollars were allegedly laundered by the Vatican, according to claims made by Serbs, Jews, and Roma. There are also claims that they helped a number of important Nazi commanders get away.
2. After the wreck of the SS Central America was found in 1988 and huge amounts of gold was recovered from it, 39 insurance companies that had paid out claims related to the shipwreck in 1857 sued the expedition team.
3. Many nations sold up their overseas holdings and gold to pay for the war effort during World War II. By 1947, the United States had amassed 70 percent of the world's gold reserves.
4. The Asian "ant" mentioned by the historian Herodotus was hairy and about the size of a fox. It dug out gold from the ground, which the inhabitants then gathered. Most likely, this was the Himalayan marmot, which likes to dig tunnels in places where there is plenty of gold. The Indian subcontinent is home to several indigenous tribes that have made a living collecting gold from near their mound for centuries.
5. The Soviet "Order of Victory" is one of the rarest military honors in the world. It had 47 grams of platinum, 2 grams of gold, 19 grams of silver, 25 carats of ruby, and 16 carats of diamond. The value of the medal is believed to be $10 million.
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6Wreck of HMS Sussex
In 2001, the shipwreck of the HMS Sussex (1694) was discovered by the treasure-hunting company Odyssey. Even though the Spanish government agreed to help the British authorities recover the loot, they still haven't allowed a team to inspect the location.
7. Using a nuclear reactor or a particle accelerator, it is now totally conceivable to transmute base metals into gold, a task that alchemists have sought for ages but seemed impossible to accomplish. However, the high cost renders the procedure impractical.
8. Battery-free electroplating was invented by Peru's ancient Moche civilization in the 1st century AD to coat copper in a thin coating of gold. Electrochemical replacement plating is feasible without electricity by altering the pH of the gold solution used in gilding. It was cheaper, faster, and better. Electrical plating allows for far thicker layers than the micron-thick ones used by this civilization.
9. Bre-X, a Canadian penny stock, discovered billions of dollars' worth of gold in Indonesia in 1995. Its shares rose quickly, and its worth rose to $6.6 billion. The chief geologist committed suicide after discovering that the core sample was salted. The company's stock plummeted and became worthless overnight. No one was ever convicted because the main culprit vanished.
10. The Japanese use a technique called "kintsugi," where shattered ceramics are repaired with gold. It symbolizes the fact that an object's breaking is an integral part of its story that should not be hidden.
11Shah Jahan's Peacock Throne
The Mughal emperor Shah Jahan's throne took seven years and four times as much money to construct as the Taj Mahal. The Koh-i-Noor Diamond was among the many priceless gems set into the throne, which itself was made of more than 2,500 pounds of gold and 500 pounds of valuable gemstones.
12. Raffi Stepanian, a resident of Queens, New York City, has made a living by sifting through the dirt and gravel in the crevices of the streets in the Diamond District in search of precious stones. Apparently, in the span of six days, he was able to amass enough gold for two sales totaling $819.
13. In 1825, French King Charles X required that Haiti pay an "independence debt" of 150 million gold francs, which was equal to ten times the country's yearly earnings at the time. Haiti still had to pay France 90 million gold francs, which is around €17 billion in modern currency. In 1947, it was still making payments on this debt.
14. Traditional prospectors would consider sewage sludge financially feasible due to the presence of commercially viable levels of gold, silver, and platinum in trace amounts. An 8-year research project discovered that one kilogram of sludge included around 0.4 milligrams of gold, 28 milligrams of silver, 638 milligrams of copper, and 49 milligrams of vanadium.
15. Following the September 11th attacks, more than $200 million in gold and silver bullion was retrieved from beneath WTC-4. It was the property of futures dealers at the New York Mercantile Exchange.
16Gold in Federal Reserve Bank of NY
There is more gold (6,190 tons) in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's vault than there is in the US Bullion Depository at Fort Knox (5,052 tons). Nonetheless, around 98% of this gold is owned by the central banks of foreign nations.
17. The U.S. Mint has 147 million troy ounces of gold stored in Fort Knox, 54 million at West Point, and 44 million in Denver as of February 2021. Members of Congress and a small group of journalists were granted access to the Fort Knox gold vault for the final time on September 23, 1974. Only 5% of the samples were analyzed during the last audit, which took place in 1953.
18. As part of an effort to provide winter quarters for an allied Ottoman navy, the entire population of Toulon, France, was evacuated for a short time in 1543. During their 8-month stay, 30,000 warriors forced the city's cathedral to be repurposed as a mosque and demanded 800,000 gold coins from the monarch before they left.
19. In 2011, Australia minted the biggest coin in the world, which is made of one ton of pure gold. Although its face value was A$1 million (£650,000) when it was minted, its actual value was much more. It would have been worth more than A$54 million if melted down and refined into gold bars at the time.
20. For anyone who might assist in locating gold deposits, Goldcorp once paid $575,000. After paying out a winner, the Canadian mining corporation dug out gold there that was worth $6 billion.
21Gold Dispensing ATMs
There are gold-plated ATMs that distribute gold bars in a number of countries (the first ATM was located in Abu Dhabi). The equipment is secured "like an armored car" and put through explosive tests to deter theft.
22. In 2010, a man named Forrest Fenn hid $2 million worth of gold in an unknown location. The only clue to the location was a poem. For years, people came as close as 200 feet to the treasure but couldn't find it until a 32-year-old Michigan medical student named Jack Stuef discovered it in 2020.
23. When King Musa I of Mali undertook the Hajj pilgrimage in 1324, he did so with 80 camels carrying a total of 50 to 300 pounds of gold and a caravan of 12,000 slaves, each of whom carried 4 pounds of gold. He dispersed so much gold to the needy in the regions he visited that it triggered widespread economic collapse and price inflation.
24. 11% of the world's gold is in the hands of Indian housewives. That is greater than the combined reserves of the United States, the International Monetary Fund, Switzerland, and Germany.
25. The oldest book in existence is the Golden Orphism Book, often called the Etruscan Gold Book. Someone excavating a ditch in Bulgaria over 70 years ago uncovered this golden artifact.
