Those interested in where the world’s monetary gold is held will want to read New York Federal Gold Vault, which appears on an interesting website called Atlas Obscura (AO). Readers will learn there that a major chunk of the world’s gold, the portion that constitutes the reserves of most of the central banks of the world, is held in several enormous vaults, four stories below street level, at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The vaults have multiple cribs, each of which is marked with the name of the country that owns the gold in the crib. The sale and purchase of gold between central banks is accomplished by a transfer from the seller’s crib to the buyer’s crib.
On reading this article recently, I was reminded of my own involvement with the NY Fed’s vault when I was employed there in the late 1950’s. A key feature of the vaults, which is not mentioned in the AO article, is that each one has two locks with different combinations. One set of combinations is in the custody of the Safekeeping Division of the Bank, which has a number of employees. The other set of combinations is in the custody of the Bank’s Secretary, who has access to the chiefs of the various divisions of the Bank. The Secretary rotates vault duty, with each chief serving for a week. When I became a division chief, the occasional vault duty came with it.
Except for having to arrive at 6 each morning to open the vaults, it was not an onerous duty. I had the bad luck, however, of drawing a week in which examiners from the Board of Governors in Washington arrived on a Saturday. That meant an unwelcome 6 th day of early rising. When the employee from safekeeping and I had opened the vaults on Saturday, I said goodbye to him, which was followed by the following exchange.
Safekeeper: Where are you going?
Me: Home, of course, this is Saturday.
Safekeeper: You can’t go home, you have to remain here until 5.
Me: Since you don’t need me to close the vault, why must I stay?
Safekeeper: In the event that there is an air raid, I will have to shut the vaults, and if the all-clear sounds before 5, I will need you to help me reopen them.
Me: I see. I’ll be in my office if you need me.
Then I went home.