Gold & silver markets

The U.S. Treasury still values its gold at $42.22 an ounce, a price written into law in 1973 and never updated. On 9 October 2026 the LBMA Gold Price PM was $4,186.30. Both numbers are correct, and they answer different questions. Many of the figures quoted about gold and silver work that way: a price, a ratio, or a country ranking that means something precise and gets repeated as if it meant something else.

The live desk shows prices and ratios as they move. The articles here take a few of those numbers apart — where each comes from, who publishes it, and what it counts.

The numbers behind the headlines

Official gold book value explains the $42.22: how the official price climbed from $35 to its last statutory level after the 1971 gold-window close, why the Treasury still counts its roughly 261.5 million ounces at that rate, and what you get when you divide a market price by it.

Central-bank gold reserves covers the tonnes held, gold’s share of reserves, gold measured against GDP, and dated purchases and sales — China’s published stock, Poland’s buying, Canada’s reserve table that now reads Gold: 0, and the Bank of England’s gold auctions of 1999–2002.

The gold–silver ratio is gold’s price divided by silver’s. The same phrase, ounces of silver per ounce of gold, is also used for mine output and for metal in London vaults, and those three counts give very different answers: near 68, near 7, and near 3 in 2026. The article also dates the famous lows, about 17 in January 1980 and the “30:1” of late April 2011.

Physical silver demand by country ranks countries by bars and coins bought in 2024 — the United States first at 64.9 million ounces, India close behind at 59.8 — and sets beside it the 2025 tables for industrial use, jewelry, coin minting, and recycled scrap. China tops the factory table and barely registers on the bar-and-coin one.

Official gold beside the federal debt

The Treasury’s gold report for 31 August 2026 counts 261,498,926.241 fine troy ounces, booked at $11,041,059,957.90. On 7 October 2026 total public debt outstanding was $40,284,036,147,367.19. Beside that debt the book value is 0.027 percent, and the market value at the 24 September 2026 LBMA Gold Price PM of $4,266.40 is 2.769 percent. The table on official gold book value holds the debt and the ounces fixed and changes only the share. The gold is not earmarked to repay the debt.

Official sales, and the cap on them

On 26 September 1999 the Washington Agreement on Gold capped signatories’ sales at about 400 tonnes a year and 2,000 tonnes over five years. Switzerland sold 1,300 tonnes from 1 May 2000 to 30 March 2005, and about 1,290 tonnes remained. Brown’s Bottom — 17 United Kingdom auctions from July 1999 to March 2002 — sold about 395 tonnes at an average near $275 an ounce. The central-bank gold reserves article dates all three.

China’s Treasuries and gold in 2026

Treasuries and gold sit on China’s reserve book with different end dates. TIC Table 5 prints mainland holdings of $684.4 billion at the end of December 2025 and $618.0 billion at the end of July 2026. Reported official gold moved from about 2,306 tonnes at the end of 2025 to about 2,410 tonnes at the end of September 2026, about +104 tonnes. Part of the $66.4 billion Treasury difference is a lower bond price — the 10-year was 4.18 percent on 31 December 2025 and 4.75 percent on 31 July 2026 — rather than sales.

Where the numbers come from

Prices are the London (LBMA) and U.S. futures (COMEX) figures shown on the desk. Reserve figures come from IMF statistics, national central banks, and World Gold Council compilations. Silver demand comes from the World Silver Survey, researched by Metals Focus for the Silver Institute; mine output from the U.S. Geological Survey and the same survey. Every figure carries its date and source, because a July number and an August number from different books do not mix.

Mine supply is ounces leaving the ground in a year, and it is a separate count again. The desk’s Stocks & flows tab shows mine output and above-ground metal beside these articles. No page here names a miner or a stock; the mine figures are geology, not picks.

How $35 became $42.22, and what closed in 1971, is told in Sound Money History. The Sunday evening the window closed, 15 August 1971, is Bretton Woods and Nixon 1971. Whether the cost of mining should limit money is taken up in hard money vs fiat, and silver’s double life as money and industrial metal in monetary history and industry.

A July print and an October print

They are not one snapshot. The gold-to-GDP table uses the LBMA Gold Price PM of $4,026.60 on 31 July 2026, matched to gold books through that month. The debt comparison uses 7 October 2026 and the 24 September 2026 afternoon price. China’s Treasury figure in that pair stops in July; the gold figure runs through September. The opening 9 October 2026 LBMA Gold Price PM of $4,186.30 does not revise either earlier London price. Each figure keeps the date on the document that printed it.