Is there any gold bullion stored at the US Mint in Denver?

Anyone with even a passing interest in US official gold reserves will probably recall that the US Treasury claims to hold its gold (8,133.5 tonnes) over four locations in continental United States, namely at three US Mint facilities in Fort Knox (Kentucky), West Point (upstate New York), Denver (Colorado), and at the New York Fed (Manhattan, New York City).

The claimed gold holding locations and summary quantities held appear in a never-changing monthly Treasury report titled “Status Report of U.S. Government Gold Reserve”.

This report states that 4,582 tonnes of US Treasury gold are stored in the US Mint’s bullion depository in Fort Knox, 1,680 tonnes at the West Point bullion storage facility, and 1,362 tonnes in the US Mint facility in Denver, for a total of 6,623 tonnes of gold. The US Treasury further claims that 417 additional tonnes of its official gold reserves are held at the Federal Reserve Bank vault in New York. An additional 87 tonnes, a working stock figure (which never changes), comprises the balance.

While Fort Knox and the NY Fed vaults regularly take the limelight in terms of volume of media coverage, and to a lesser extent the West Point vaults do so also, there is very little if anything devoted to coverage of the US Treasury gold supposedly held in Denver. It is therefore of interest that none other than the US Mint on its own website recently ceased claiming that it stores gold bullion at its Denver facility.

On August 11, 2014, the US Mint’s Denver web page contained the following statement:

“Today, the United States Mint at Denver manufactures all denominations of circulating coins, coin dies, the Denver “D” portion of the annual uncirculated coin sets and commemorative coins authorized by the U. S. Congress. It also stores gold and silver bullion.”

Less than a month later, on September 8, 2014, the above paragraph had been subtly changed to the following, and the words ‘gold and’ had been removed:

“Today, the United States Mint at Denver manufactures all denominations of circulating coins, coin dies, the Denver “D” portion of the annual uncirculated coin sets and commemorative coins authorized by the U. S. Congress. It also stores silver bullion.”

The amended wording remains on the Mint’s present day Denver web page i.e. with just the “It also stores silver bullion” sentence.

At the very least this change in wording between August and September 2014 is very unusual. Why would the Mint have authorized and made such a wording change and deleted the reference to gold bullion? I asked the US Mint to clarify but the query went unanswered:

@usmint why does your website state that Denver Facility “also stores silver bullion”, but not gold? No gold there? pic.twitter.com/k3PwVfwGnV

— Ronan Manly (@ronanmanly) October 15, 2015

Given that the Denver Mint does not produce any gold or silver coins, the Mint does not have a need to store either gold or silver bullion working stock in Denver, so the above wording cannot be referring to metal being stored for fabrication supplies. The only commemorative coin produced in Denver is an uncirculated clad half dollar made of copper and nickel.  While the above change of wording on the US Mint’s website could have an entirely different explanation, it does raise the possibility that there isn’t any US Treasury gold bullion stored in Denver. This possibility would also subscribe to a view that has been expressed for quite some time now by well-known gold author and commentator James Rickards. Since at least 2010, and probably prior to that, Rickards seems to think that the US gold reserves are nearly exclusively stored at West Point and Fort Knox. Some tweets of his illustrate the point:   

Almost all U.S. #gold is either in Ft. Knox or West Point, both Army bases. So U.S. gold is effectively controlled by the military. — Jim Rickards (@JamesGRickards) September 1, 2010

@cetarro Right, but to put a finer point on it, #gold is really controlled by the military because it’s all at Ft. Knox and West Point

— Jim Rickards (@JamesGRickards) November 6, 2010

@JohnyGodard @amaeryllis It’s not at the Treasury either. The Army has it. #FtKnox #WestPoint

— Jim Rickards (@JamesGRickards) August 5, 2011

@CraiWai @elboertjie @kuston U.S. gold is divided between Fort Knox and West Point. It’s there. The gold at NY Fed belongs to other nations

— Jim Rickards (@JamesGRickards) July 26, 2016

This view, that the US gold is kept at West Point and Fort Knox, actually makes quite a lot of practical sense and is entirely logical. It also makes Denver look like the odd man out.

The US Mint facilities at Fort Knox and West Point are located adjacent to US military installations, namely the US Army base, Fort Knox, and the US Military Academy, West Point. The Fort Knox bullion depository, which opened in 1936, was actually built on land that was previously part of the Fort Knox military base, and that had been deeded to the Treasury Department. The West Point bullion facility, which opened two years later in 1938, was built on land formerly occupied by the West Point military facility, and that had also been deeded to the Treasury Department.

Having large quantities of gold stored in facilities next door to US military facilities is a natural security advantage for protection and also as a deterrent against any would be gold heists. In contrast, the US Mint facility in Denver is located on a city block at 320 West Colfax Avenue, between Delaware St and Cherokee St. It’s near a court-house and a police station but no sign of any US military facilities in the immediate vicinity.

US Mint Denver rear view

The US Mint in Denver is also the odd one out (of the three) in that it offers public tours of the facility, something unheard of at Fort Knox and West Point. Arguably, the NYFed offers a gold vault tour, but out of US Mint facilities that the Treasury claims to store gold at, Denver is the only one with a public tour. The supposed location of the gold vaults in Denver is also a complete mystery with no photos or images of any vaults or contents of vaults (as far as I can see) ever on the web. A review of the Denver Mint tour (here) mentions supposed gold storage in the lower decks of the building but this seems to be merely supposition as it is inferring that 3 gold bars on display in Denver came from the building’s vaults. However, they did not. These three gold bars actually came from West Point, as CoinWeek stated in May 2012:

“Denver Mint plant manager David Croft pointed out that the three bars were shipped in from the U.S. Mint’s working gold supply at West Point and did not come from the gold that is in deep storage in Denver.“

Which begs the question, why? The US Mint would probably answer, so as not to ‘break the seals’ on the Denver vault doors, but this shipping of 3 gold bars from upstate New York to Denver would seem completely unnecessary if Denver was storing  a couple of tonnes of gold, let alone 1,362 tonnes. The more accurate answer may be that the US gold, if it even exists to the extent to which the US Treasury claims, is held adjacent to US military bases at West Point and Fort Knox.

Ronan Manly
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