Gold Can Be Confiscated By The Goverment?

There are a great many things that the government could, in theory, do. But in between "what a government could theoretically do" and "what a government will actually do" is a vast territory, inhabited by all kinds of loony conspiracy weirdos who seem to believe the government is sitting around actively plotting ways of destroying their lives.

Speculation on "the government seizing everybody's gold" is centred on a prior occurrence of just that - back in 1933, Executive Order 6102 was enacted; aimed at eliminating the private hoarding of gold, it forced everyone with gold hoards to sell their gold at the official gold price. There were exemptions - you were allowed to keep the equivalent of $100 face value in gold coin and coin collections, family heirlooms and similar historic artefacts were exempt.

Note that it was technically a "forced sale", not "forced seizure". People who handed in their gold were compensated, at the official gold price. And, given that the government did not hire legions of stormtroopers to go around raiding houses and safety deposit boxes looking for illegal gold hoards, one does have to wonder at exactly how effective they expected it to be. But the fact remains that Executive Order 6102 did happen, and there is literally nothing to stop the government making a similar order again. They could just as easily and just as theoretically order the seizure of antique coins, or silver, or uranium, or bone marrow, or anything else you might consider "yours".

The big question is, therefore, "Why?" Why would the government order gold seizure/forfeiture? The argument seems to be that times were tough back in 1933, with the Great Depression and all, so they might do it again now we are supposedly entering a New Great Depression. The thing is, it wouldn't help anywhere near as much as gold seizure back then was supposed to help.

The point of Executive Order 6102 was to force people holding gold coin to spend it, and therefore get the economy moving again. But "gold" is no longer synonymous with "money"; making everyone sell off the gold would no longer have the stimulus effect that EO 6102 was supposed to have. Nor is there any longer an "official gold price" the government can set; if the government wants to buy gold, it pays market rates just like everyone else.

So maybe, the conspiracy theorists warn, the government, under pressure to pay off your national debt, will seize all your gold and give it all away to the Chinese to cancel the debt. The problem with this theory is, of course, that at current gold prices, there just isn't enough gold about to cover the debt. Every single speck of gold ever mined on the planet would only cover about a third of the US national debt. So gold seizure would have no functional purpose in this regard, either.

So yes, the government has the legal right to seize your gold from you. But no, it'd be pretty pointless for them to do so. For the foreseeable future, your gold is safe, and so are your coins, silver, uranium and bone marrow.

PM backed IRA's have been being seized by a number of countries in the last few years. That is the thing to fear about a US government seizure...after all, taking IRA's is easy...taking every bit of gold everyone in the country has isn't.

Should the value of the dollar plummet, or should nations start refusing US Dollars, or should the US be unable to return Germany's gold, then we could see the government taking some drastic steps and making gold illegal again. Of course, it'd be very hard to enforce with the ability to purchase (and ship discretely) gold from, say, Canada. As well, the number of people who'd willingly turn over their gold (even for compensation) like in 1933 are very low.

Bottom line, if you have gold, keep it to yourself. Don't go telling the whole world. Keep it hidden and safe, and you shouldn't have a problem with any possible future scenarios involving seizure.

This has been the scare tactic used by sheisters and TV gold thieves for years. (Many currently being sued)

Telling people who want to invest in gold, that the gov't can confiscate their gold bullion, but the gov't can't confiscate numismatic coins. So they were (still are apparently) directing people, mostly the elderly,into overpriced St. Gaudens, Indian Head and Eagle coins. People would get sucked in by the " invest in gold " sales pitch, but instead of being sold bullion at $1700 spot price, they were being told that they needed to invest in coins at $3000. They were being convinced that not only would their investment in common date St. Gaudens coins far out perform regular gold ingots as an investment, but that when the gov't confiscated gold like they did in 1933, that only collector coin would be exempt.And their investment would thus be protected.

LIES.....LIES......LIES...... lies on the confiscation, lies on the exemption and now, these poor people who bought 10's and 100's of thousands of dollars worth of "investment" coins realize they paid 3X what the coins were worth, plus the fact that gold lost 1/3 of it's PM value.

Can the gov't decree that people can only own 2 cars to fight pollution and fossil fuel depletion.....yes but they won't.
Can the gov't decree that people can only have 2 children ... max, to fight overpopulation.......yes they can,but they won't
Can the gov't confiscate all the gold, they sure can, but again, they won't

The Gold Surrender Executive Order had virtually zero effect on private citizens. During the First World War, most of the gold in the country had flowed into the vaults of the newly created Federal Reserve Banks, which used it to finance wartime inflation and then the bubble of the 1920s. A gold coin was rarely seen in circulation after that except on the Pacific coast, which is reflected in the small total mintage (and numerous skipped years) of the quarter-eagle, half-eagle, & eagle after 1914. Double eagles were being made for the banks, but not the circulating denominations.

And when that Executive Order issued, the banks & bullion dealers, who held the bulk of the gold and gold certificates outside the Federal Reserve vaults, handed it over with very little fuss. There was no attempt to enforce it against individuals and householders, even ones who had thousands of dollars' worth, as my grandmother, who grew up on a ranch in Northern California, will attest.

This is a perfect summary of every single PM advocate out there. If any of them believed anything they were saying they wouldnt be happily trading their metals for dollars.

government can enslave everyone, so stop worrying about what they can or can't

This.