Months after the Bundesbank, Germany's federal bank, reacquired much of its gold bullion reserves from abroad, the bank is presenting a portion of its treasure to the public for the first time.
Speaking of the current exhibition of the noteworthy bars of gold bullion and rare coins on display at the German Money Museum in Frankfurt, Carl-Ludwig Thiele, a board member of the bank, said: “Almost nothing attracts more public interest than that of pure gold,”
According to the German News Agency, among the displayed gold is one of the oldest gold bars from the German currency reserves, which was poured in London in 1917. "The exhibition completes the Bundesbank's transparency initiative on its gold," says Thiele.
After growing public pressure in 2013, the bank set itself the goal of holding at least half of the German reserves in its own vaults on home soil. Hundreds of bars from the vaults of the US Federal Reserve in New York and the Banque de France in Paris were brought back to Frankfurt. The relocation of the precious metals was completed in August.
Some 1,710 tons of the metal will continue to be stored on the premises of the Bundesbank in Frankfurt. Some German gold will remain in New York and London. Germany possesses 3,378 tons of gold, estimated to have a value of 141 billion dollars.
In the case of a major crisis, gold can be exchanged for currency. London is the largest trading center for the precious metal and the US dollar the most important international reserve currency.
The exhibition "Gold. Treasures at the Deutsche Bundesbank" will run until September 30, 2018, at the Money Museum of Bundesbank in Frankfurt, Germany.
