The US government called in privately held gold once, under Executive Order 6102 of April 5, 1933. No law in force on October 2, 2026 orders Americans to hand over gold. The order paid holders $20.67 an ounce, exempted collector coins, and was replaced after 145 days. So where does the "confiscation-proof coin" pitch come from, and does it hold up for gold in an IRA? An executive order is a written order from the president that has legal force when a law allows it.
This page is part of our guide to gold and silver for retirement. The order is often shortened to "EO 6102" and called the FDR gold confiscation or the gold confiscation of 1933. Below you find what it required, why it was issued, how long it lasted, what stayed exempt until 1974 and who was prosecuted. Then come today's law, the coin pitch and the gold in your IRA.
Every claim below links to the order, the statute, the regulation or the court opinion.
Can the Government Confiscate Your Gold Today?#
As 50 U.S.C. 4305(b) and 50 U.S.C. 1702 read on October 2, 2026, no law in force lets a president order Americans to hand over gold in peacetime. Congress can pass one, and no coin is exempt in advance. Peacetime means any time the country is not at war. A statute is a law passed by Congress, and a president needs one before he can order anything.
Four things are true at once, as listed below.
- The 1933 power is now a wartime power. Since December 28, 1977, the statute Roosevelt used applies only "During the time of war" (50 U.S.C. 4305(b)).
- Private gold ownership is legal, with no federal limit. That has been the law since December 31, 1974 (Public Law 93-373).
- The peacetime emergency law names foreign property. It covers "any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest" (50 U.S.C. 1702(a)(1)(B)).
- The Constitution has a payment clause. The Fifth Amendment says private property shall not "be taken for public use, without just compensation". Just compensation means a fair price. In 1933, holders were paid in paper money at the official price.
Nobody can tell you what a future Congress will do. That includes us, and it includes anyone selling coins.
A government order is also a different risk from a lawsuit or a bankruptcy. Whether a gold IRA is protected from creditors is a separate rule with its own page.
What law would a president need today?#
A president would need a statute that covers gold held by Americans inside the United States, and the one Roosevelt used now applies only in wartime. That statute is section 5(b) of the Act of October 6, 1917. Today it sits in the US Code at 50 U.S.C. 4305(b).
Before December 28, 1977, the same line was wider. It read "During the time of war or during any other period of national emergency declared by the President". A national emergency is a crisis the president declares in writing. Public Law 95-223 cut those words out.
A different law covers a peacetime emergency.
The table below compares the legal footing in 1933 with the footing on our review date, October 2, 2026.
| Question | In 1933 | On October 2, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Statute used | Section 5(b) of the Act of October 6, 1917, as amended March 9, 1933 | 50 U.S.C. 4305(b), the same section |
| When it applies | War, or any national emergency the president declares | War only, since December 28, 1977 |
| Private gold ownership | Restricted from April 5, 1933 | Legal, no federal limit, since December 31, 1974 |
| Gold orders in force | Executive Order 6102, then Executive Order 6260 | None: revoked December 31, 1974 by Executive Order 11825 |
Congress wrote these statutes, and Congress can change them.
What Did Executive Order 6102 Require in 1933?#
Executive Order 6102, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 5, 1933, required people to deliver their gold to a Federal Reserve bank or member bank by May 1, 1933. It covered gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates. Bullion means bars and other gold valued by weight. A gold certificate was paper money that could be exchanged for gold coin. A member bank was a commercial bank that belonged to the Federal Reserve System.
Section 1 defines hoarding as "the withdrawal and withholding of gold coin, gold bullion or gold certificates from the recognized and customary channels of trade." Put simply, hoarding meant keeping gold out of the banks.
The order worked in 5 steps, listed below.
- Deliver your gold to a bank by May 1, 1933 (Section 2).
- Deliver any gold you receive after April 28, 1933 within 3 days (Section 3).
- Receive "an equivalent amount of any other form of coin or currency" in return (Section 4).
- Claim the costs of transport and insurance from the Treasury (Section 6).
- Ask for more time in writing in a hardship case (Section 7).
What was the penalty? Section 9 says a violator may be "fined not more than $10,000, or, if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than ten years, or both". A $10,000 fine was the price of about 483.8 ounces of gold at $20.67 an ounce.
Did the US government ever confiscate gold from citizens? Yes, once, and it paid for the gold. The order covered gold only. Its legal basis was section 5(b) of the Act of October 6, 1917, as amended by the Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933.
Did the government open safe deposit boxes in 1933? The text of the order contains no clause on searching homes or bank boxes. It required people to deliver gold themselves (Section 2).
We found no primary record of how much gold people turned in, so this page gives no total.
The 4 exemptions in Section 2 of the order#
Section 2 of Executive Order 6102 exempted 4 kinds of gold: working gold, $100 of coin per person plus collector coins, foreign official gold and licensed gold. The table below gives the exact words of each exemption and what they meant.
| Exemption | Exact words | In plain English |
|---|---|---|
| (a) Working gold | "legitimate and customary use in industry, profession or art" | Jewelers, dentists, refiners and miners kept their working stock |
| (b) Small holdings and rare coins | "Gold coin and gold certificates in an amount not exceeding in the aggregate $100 belonging to any one person; and gold coins having a recognized special value to collectors of rare and unusual coins" | Each person kept $100 in face value, plus rare coins |
| (c) Foreign official gold | "earmarked or held in trust for a recognized foreign Government or foreign central bank or the Bank for International Settlements" | Gold held for other countries stayed put |
| (d) Licensed gold | "licensed for other proper transactions (not involving hoarding)" | Imports for re-export and other licensed deals |
How much gold was $100? At $20.67, $100 bought 4.84 troy ounces. A troy ounce is the unit used for gold and equals 31.1 grams. That is five $20 gold coins, called double eagles, which together hold 4.8375 ounces of gold. Face value is the dollar amount stamped on a coin.
At the LBMA Gold Price PM of $4,144.55 on September 28, 2026, that gold is worth about $20,049. Gold bars had no $100 allowance. Paragraph (b) names coin and certificates only.
What holders were paid: $20.67 an ounce, then $35 nine months later#
Holders were paid face value in other US money, which worked out to $20.67 per troy ounce of gold, the official price set in law in 1900. The official price was the fixed number of dollars the government set for an ounce of gold. Nine months after the May 1, 1933 deadline, that price changed.
The table below shows what the change meant for a person who handed in 10 ounces.
| 10 ounces handed in | Dollars |
|---|---|
| Paid by the May 1, 1933 deadline, at $20.67 an ounce | $206.70 |
| Official value from January 31, 1934, at $35 an ounce | $350.00 |
| Difference | $143.30 (69.3%) |
President Roosevelt signed the Gold Reserve Act on January 30, 1934 and proclaimed the $35 price on January 31, 1934. The new rate "reduced the gold value of the dollar to 59 percent" of its old level, says Federal Reserve History. That is a devaluation: a cut in the amount of gold a dollar stands for.
Where did the gold go? Section 2 of the act "transferred ownership of all monetary gold in the United States to the US Treasury", the same essay says. The 1933 order was a forced sale at the old price, and the gain from the new price went to the Treasury.
Why Was Executive Order 6102 Issued?#
Executive Order 6102 was issued on April 5, 1933 to stop the hoarding of gold during the banking emergency and move that gold into the Federal Reserve banks. Those banks had to hold gold equal to 40% of the paper money they issued. The order's own opening says the president acts to "prohibit the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates". It acts because "said national emergency still continues to exist" (Executive Order 6102, April 5, 1933). The Secretary of the Treasury gave the reason the same day, in a statement the Federal Reserve Board printed.
A gold reserve is the gold a bank keeps to back its paper money. Robert Jabaily explains the rule in the Federal Reserve History essay "Bank Holiday of 1933" (2013). Reserve banks, he writes, "were required to maintain gold reserves equal to 40 percent of the paper currency they issued". By March 1933, he adds, "the New York Reserve Bank's gold reserve had fallen below the legal limit".
The order was one step in a larger program. The wider goal "was to raise American prices of commodities like wheat and cotton", write Gary Richardson, Alejandro Komai and Michael Gou in "Roosevelt's Gold Program" (Federal Reserve History, 2013). The timeline below puts the order among the 9 dated steps of that program.
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| March 6, 1933 | Proclamation 2039 closes the banks and bars paying out gold | Federal Reserve History, "Bank Holiday of 1933" |
| March 9, 1933 | Emergency Banking Act amends section 5(b) to cover national emergencies | 50 U.S.C. 4305, amendment notes |
| April 5, 1933 | Executive Order 6102 requires delivery of gold | Order text |
| April 20, 1933 | An executive order bars gold exports; Federal Reserve History dates the formal suspension of the gold standard to it | Executive Order 6260 text; Federal Reserve History, "Roosevelt's Gold Program" |
| May 1, 1933 | Delivery deadline under Executive Order 6102 | Order text, Section 2 |
| June 5, 1933 | Congress cancels gold clauses in contracts | Federal Reserve History, "Roosevelt's Gold Program" |
| August 28, 1933 | Executive Order 6260 revokes and replaces Executive Order 6102 | Order text |
| October 1933 | The government's gold purchase plan begins | Federal Reserve History, "Roosevelt's Gold Program" |
| January 30 and 31, 1934 | Gold Reserve Act signed; gold set at $35 an ounce | Federal Reserve History, "Gold Reserve Act of 1934" |
A gold standard is a system where paper money can be exchanged for a fixed amount of gold. A gold clause was a contract term that promised payment in gold or its value.
A common version says the main reason was to free the Federal Reserve to print more money. The sources support part of that. The Treasury said the gold would serve "as a basis for currency and credit" once it sat in the Reserve banks. The order itself did not change the 40% reserve rule. It gave one reason: to end hoarding in a declared emergency.
Is Executive Order 6102 Still in Effect? It Was Revoked After 145 Days#
No. Executive Order 6102 was revoked on August 28, 1933, 145 days after it was signed, when Executive Order 6260 replaced it. To revoke an order means to cancel it.
The 3 dates that ended the gold rules are listed below in order.
- August 28, 1933. Executive Order 6260 revokes Executive Order 6102. It keeps the $100 exemption and the collector-coin exemption.
- December 31, 1974. Public Law 93-373 takes effect. It says no "rule, regulation, or order ... may be construed to prohibit any person from purchasing, holding, selling, or otherwise dealing with gold". On the same day, President Gerald Ford's Executive Order 11825 revokes Executive Order 6260 and the later gold orders (40 F.R. 1003, January 6, 1975).
- December 28, 1977. Public Law 95-223 limits section 5(b) to wartime.
The 1933 to 1974 Ban on Private Gold Ownership, and What Was Exempt#
From April 5, 1933 to December 31, 1974, a span of 41 years, 8 months and 26 days, Americans needed a Treasury license to hold gold bullion. Jewelry, gold in its natural state and rare coins stayed legal. The end date comes from Public Law 93-373, approved August 14, 1974 (88 Stat. 445, section 2). The rules in between were the Treasury's Gold Regulations, 31 CFR Part 54, as revised at 19 F.R. 4309 on July 14, 1954.
The same regulations note that such coins "have been exempted from such delivery requirement".
Fabricated gold is gold made into a product, such as jewelry. Gold in its natural state is gold as it comes from the ground, before refining.
The table below shows what a person could hold without a license in each of the 4 periods.
| Period | Rule in force | Legal to hold without a license | Not legal without a license |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 5 to August 28, 1933 | Executive Order 6102 | $100 of gold coin and certificates per person; rare coins; gold for industry and art | Other coin, other bullion, other certificates |
| August 28, 1933 to July 1954 | Executive Order 6260 and Treasury regulations | $100 per person; "gold coin having a recognized special value to collectors of rare and unusual coin"; licensed industrial gold | Other coin, bullion |
| July 14, 1954 to December 31, 1974 | 31 CFR Part 54 (1954 revision) | All gold coin made before April 5, 1933; fabricated gold; gold in its natural state (54.19); up to 50 ounces of gold for processors (54.21) | Gold bullion; gold coin made after April 5, 1933, unless shown to be rare |
| From December 31, 1974 | Public Law 93-373 | Any gold, in any amount | Nothing |
A common summary says the government banned gold coins "held for non-numismatic purposes". Numismatic means collected for rarity, not for metal weight. After July 14, 1954, that is not what the rule said. The regulation did not ask why you held a coin. It asked when the coin was made.
The law that ended the ban was mainly a funding act for the International Development Association.
The same year gold became legal again, Congress created the IRA. The history of gold in IRAs picks up from 1974.
Who Was Prosecuted Under the Gold Orders?#
Court records show few prosecutions: Frederick Barber Campbell beat the charge of holding gold in 1933, and a California man got 6 months in jail in 1940. A third man sued the government for more money and lost. The table below gives the 3 cases we could trace to a court record.
| Case and citation | Gold involved | Charge or claim | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Campbell v. Chase National Bank and United States v. Campbell, 5 F. Supp. 156 (S.D.N.Y. November 16, 1933) | Gold bullion worth more than $200,000, held at Chase National Bank | Count 1: no report of his gold filed. Count 2: holding gold without a license | Count 1 upheld. Count 2 thrown out. Outcome of the later proceedings not found |
| Ruffino v. United States, 114 F.2d 696 (9th Cir. September 11, 1940) | About 78.50 troy ounces of gold bullion, .840 fine: 65.94 ounces of pure gold | Acquiring gold bullion without a license | Guilty plea; 6 months in jail and a $500 fine; affirmed |
| Nortz v. United States, 294 U.S. 317 (February 18, 1935), a civil case | $106,300 in gold certificates, presented January 17, 1934 | A claim for $64,334.07 more than he was paid | Supreme Court: the certificates were currency, and he showed no "actual loss" |
An indictment is a formal criminal charge, and each separate charge in it is a count. Affirmed means the higher court agreed with the lower court.
Neither criminal case was brought under Executive Order 6102 itself. Campbell was charged under the order of August 28, 1933. Ruffino was charged under the statute and the Gold Reserve Act of 1934.
Campbell's second count was thrown out because the statute gave the power to require surrender to the Secretary of the Treasury, not the president. We could not open the opinion itself, so this row follows the summary at 32 Mich. L. Rev. 405 (1934).
Ruffino acquired the gold on July 5, 1939 at Sutter Creek, California, was indicted on 3 counts and pleaded guilty to the first. His 65.94 ounces were worth about $2,308 at the official price of $35. At the LBMA Gold Price PM of $4,144.55 on September 28, 2026, the same gold is worth about $273,292.
We found no official count of prosecutions. The 3 cases above are the ones with a court record we could read or trace.
Are Pre-1933 Gold Coins Legal Tender Today?#
Yes: since July 23, 1965, every US coin, "regardless of when coined or issued", is legal tender, so a pre-1933 $20 gold coin is legal tender for $20. Legal tender is money a creditor must accept for a debt. The source is section 102 of the Coinage Act of 1965, Public Law 89-81 (79 Stat. 254). It says "All coins and currencies of the United States ... regardless of when coined or issued, shall be legal tender for all debts, public and private". Today's wording is in 31 U.S.C. 5103: "United States coins and currency ... are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues."
What legal tender means for a debt, and what it does not mean for value, is defined in the glossary. The statute itself gives no values. The table below computes them for one coin, the $20 Saint-Gaudens or Liberty double eagle. Fineness is the share of pure gold in a coin, and .900 fine means 90% gold.
| $20 double eagle | Value |
|---|---|
| Legal tender value | $20.00 |
| Gold content | 0.9675 troy ounce (.900 fine) |
| Gold value at $20.67 an ounce (1933) | $20.00 |
| Gold value at $35 an ounce (1934) | $33.86 |
| Gold value at the LBMA Gold Price PM of $4,144.55 (September 28, 2026) | $4,009.85 |
| Ratio of gold value to face value | About 200 to 1 |
Some sources credit a "1964 act". The law is the Coinage Act of 1965, signed July 23, 1965.
Legal tender status does not protect a coin from a future order. It does not make a coin IRA-eligible either.
Are "Confiscation-Proof" Coins Real? What the 1933 Exemption Does Not Promise#
No coin is "confiscation-proof": the federal commodities regulator lists "The government can't seize collectible coins" as a lie told by gold IRA scammers. That regulator is the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency that polices commodity fraud. A collectible is an item priced for rarity, such as a rare coin. The quote comes from its customer education office.
What kind of gold cannot be confiscated? None, by law. The 3 reasons below show why the 1933 exemption is not a shield.
- The source. The pitch comes from Section 2(b) of the 1933 order and from the 1954 regulation. Both are quoted above.
- The fine print. Executive Order 6102 ends with this line: "This order and these regulations may be modified or revoked at any time." Every exemption was a choice, and all of those orders were revoked by December 31, 1974.
- The future. A new law would be written from scratch. Nothing requires it to copy 1933.
The table below sets 5 common sales claims against the record.
| What the sales pitch says | What the record says | Source |
|---|---|---|
| "The order was issued May 1, 1933" | It was signed April 5, 1933. May 1 was the delivery deadline | Executive Order 6102, Section 2 |
| "Executive Order 6102 lasted until 1974 or 1975" | It lasted 145 days. The gold rules that followed ended December 31, 1974 | Executive Order 6260; Public Law 93-373 |
| "The 1917 law the president used is still ready to use" | Since December 28, 1977 it applies only "During the time of war" | 50 U.S.C. 4305(b); Public Law 95-223 |
| "Rare coins are something the government won't take" | "There is no special federal protection for collectible coins" | CFTC, "Lies Versus Facts", March 2024 |
| "Gold IRAs are the likely target, so buy pre-1933 coins" | Pre-1933 US gold coins cannot go in an IRA at all | 26 U.S.C. 408(m)(3) |
The same CFTC flier adds a second warning. It says "only certain bullion coins can go in an Individual Retirement Account. If someone tries to sell you higher priced 'collectibles' for an IRA, the coins likely are not rare and you're being scammed".
The same claim appears among the warning signs of gold IRA scams.
What the "confiscation-proof" premium costs#
A common-date pre-1933 $20 gold coin sold for about 1.10% over its gold value on September 29, 2026, so a far higher "collector" price pays for a story, not metal. A premium is the price above the gold value. Melt value is what the gold in a coin is worth, and the spot price is the market price of an ounce today. Common-date means a year with a large number of surviving coins.
The table below shows how much gold $50,000 buys at each premium over the gold value.
| Premium over gold value | Where the number comes from | Gold you get for $50,000 | Premium you pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.10% | Common-date $20 Saint-Gaudens: one large online dealer's listed wire price of $4,065.78 against melt value of $4,021.72, September 29, 2026 | $49,456 | $544 |
| 40% | Low end of the CFTC's range for numismatic coins | $35,714 | $14,286 |
| 100% | Middle of that range | $25,000 | $25,000 |
| 200% | High end of that range | $16,667 | $33,333 |
The CFTC advisory in release 8215-20 (August 4, 2020) says bullion premiums run "between 5 percent and 10 percent". Numismatic coins, it says, carry "premiums that can range from 40 percent to 200 percent above the spot price". At a 100% premium, gold must double before you are back to even. How markups and spreads are set, and how to ask for them in writing, has its own page.
The 1.10% figure is one dealer's price on one day.
A seller who starts with bullion and then steers you to high-premium coins is using a bait-and-switch. That sales method is covered under numismatic coin upsells.
Can the Government Confiscate the Gold in Your IRA?#
No law in force on October 2, 2026 singles out gold in an IRA for seizure, and no law shields it either. IRA gold is treated like any other property the account owns. The 3 facts below describe how IRA gold is held.
- Owner. The IRA owns the metal, and a bank or approved nonbank trustee must hold it. The tax code requires bullion "in the physical possession of a trustee" (26 U.S.C. 408(m)(3)(B)). A nonbank trustee is a company the IRS has approved to hold IRAs without being a bank.
- Location. The metal sits in a depository, which is a vault company. Your statement names it.
- Record. The custodian reports the account's year-end value to the IRS each year on Form 5498. The custodian is the bank or trust company that holds your IRA, and Form 5498 is its yearly report on the account.
IRA gold is easy to find and count, because the tax break requires a custodian and reporting. Gold you buy with after-tax money can sit at home, but it gets no tax deferral.
How a gold IRA works, and what it costs, is covered in the main guide.
Why pre-1933 gold coins cannot go in an IRA#
Pre-1933 US gold coins cannot go in an IRA because they are 90% gold, below the 99.5% the tax code requires, and they are not among the coins Congress named. So the coins sold as "confiscation-proof" are collectibles under 26 U.S.C. 408(m). The collectibles rule treats an IRA's purchase of one as a distribution, meaning a withdrawal the IRS taxes, of the price paid. The collectibles rule has its own page.
The tax code gives a gold coin 2 routes into an IRA, and the table below shows that a pre-1933 coin fails both.
| Route | What the tax code allows | A 1907 to 1933 Saint-Gaudens $20 coin |
|---|---|---|
| A: named coins | Gold coins minted under 31 U.S.C. 5112(a)(7) to (10), the American Gold Eagle (26 U.S.C. 408(m)(3)(A)) | Not one of them |
| B: bullion by fineness | Gold at .995 fineness or higher, held by the trustee (26 U.S.C. 408(m)(3)(B)) | .900 fine: fails |
The two costs stack. At a 100% premium, $25,000 of that $50,000 is premium, and the whole $50,000 still counts as a withdrawal.
As we read the 1933 wording, the bullion coins an IRA can hold would not have fit the collector exemption. The coins that did fit it cannot go in an IRA.
Why pre-1933 gold coins in an IRA fail the test, coin by coin, is on the double eagle page.
What depository insurance says about confiscation#
Depository insurance does not pay for a government seizure: Delaware Depository's account agreement excludes loss from "confiscation or nationalization or requisition" by order of any government. An exclusion is something a policy will not pay for. The words come from section 4.6 of the company's Non-Commercial Account Agreement, which we read on September 29, 2026.
That agreement is for personal accounts. An IRA account is opened through the custodian. Insurance limits differ among gold IRA depositories, and each agreement lists its exclusions. FDIC and SIPC coverage never applies to IRA metal.
One state has written a law on the point. Texas Government Code 2116.023 calls a seizure of a Texas Bullion Depository account by any authority other than Texas "void ab initio". Void ab initio means treated as never valid. As of September 2026, no court has tested that clause. Treat the clause as a statement of state policy, not a guarantee.
The full picture of how gold IRA storage is insured covers limits, payout value and audits.
Why home storage is not a fix#
Moving IRA gold to your home does not protect it from anything, and it triggers tax. The Tax Court treated home-stored IRA coins as a taxable distribution in McNulty v. Commissioner, 157 T.C. No. 10 (2021). Sellers of "home storage" IRAs use the same confiscation fear. Why a home storage gold IRA fails is explained with the McNulty ruling.
What Else Should You Know About Gold Ownership Rules?#
Gold ownership in the United States has had no federal limit since December 31, 1974; the rules that matter now are tax rules, storage rules and seller conduct. The table below points to the page for each of those rules.
| If you want to know | Read |
|---|---|
| How gold came back into IRAs after 1974 | The 1974 legalization and what followed |
| Which coins and bars an IRA can hold | The precious metals the tax code allows in an IRA |
| How the account works across all four metals | The precious metals IRA guide |
| What to do about a seller who uses fear claims | Where to report a gold IRA company |
Questions readers ask about owning gold in the United States#
Readers ask the 5 questions below after they read about the 1933 gold confiscation.
How much gold can a US citizen legally own?#
There is no federal limit: since December 31, 1974, federal law lets any person buy, hold and sell gold in any amount. Public Law 93-373, section 2, says no rule or order may "prohibit any person from purchasing, holding, selling, or otherwise dealing with gold". That also answers how much gold you can keep at home: any amount you own yourself. The only gold you cannot keep at home is gold owned by your IRA.
When was it illegal to buy gold in the USA? From April 5, 1933 to December 31, 1974, with the exemptions shown above.
Which president made it legal to own gold again?#
President Gerald Ford signed Public Law 93-373 on August 14, 1974, and it took effect on December 31, 1974. Ford also signed Executive Order 11825 on December 31, 1974, which revoked the remaining gold orders. An earlier step belongs to President Richard Nixon. On August 15, 1971, he ended convertibility, the right of foreign governments to exchange their dollars for gold, according to Federal Reserve History.
Was silver confiscated in 1933?#
No. Executive Order 6102 covered gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates only. Its title is "Forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion and Gold Certificates", and Section 2 names the same 3 items. Silver appears nowhere in the delivery requirement. This page covers the 1933 gold order only.
Does the IRS know if you buy gold?#
For gold in an IRA, yes: the custodian reports the account to the IRS every year on Form 5498. That form shows the account's year-end value, as the IRS instructions for it explain. Gold you buy outside an IRA follows different reporting rules. Each form behind "does the IRS know about your gold" is decoded box by box on the reporting page.
Can your IRA or 401(k) be frozen or seized?#
No law lets a bank or broker freeze your whole IRA or 401(k) in a market downturn. The SEC alleged that sales agents of Safeguard Metals LLC, a failed gold dealer, told investors such a law existed. The case is SEC v. Safeguard Metals LLC (C.D. Cal. No. 2:22-cv-00693), filed February 1, 2022. The complaint says "there was no law that allowed banks and brokerage firms to freeze investors' retirement accounts". The court entered final judgment for the SEC on May 2, 2025, with $25,569,303 in disgorgement (SEC Litigation Release 26307). Can your IRA or 401(k) be frozen or seized by other means? That page answers with the cases.