# What would have actually happened to the gold in the "Goldfinger" scenario? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 27, 2025, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889 "2025-02-27T21:56:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/21 "2025-03-04T00:34:34Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > While that may be true for a few people, the majority are talking about an audit, not just looking at it to make sure that vaults aren’t empty. It is audited every year, mainly by checking that the seals on containers/pallets/vault rooms show no tampering. They do not unstack the gold bars, check the serial number on each one, and count them – that would take more than a year to complete. (There are somewhere between 30,000 - 40,000 gold bars in the inventory.) They do actually do that for a few selected containers each year. I think it would take about 15 years for all of them to be done. The checking is done by a separate group – Congress’s General Accounting Office. A full audit is done only occasionally (it’s quite expensive). I think recent ones were in 1953, 1974, and 1986. Recently, some people have been raising a fuss because the detail record of some of these audits can no longer be found. But that seems silly to me – can you show all your financial records from 1953? And the people raising these ‘concerns’ seem to be right-wingers who are in the business of selling gold. Not at all disinterested parties! ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/22 "2025-03-04T02:47:53Z")
> [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](#): > > They do not unstack the gold bars, check the serial number on each one, and count them – that would take more than a year to complete. (There are somewhere between 30,000 - 40,000 gold bars in the inventory.) That is what they want, a full audit of every bar. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/23 "2025-03-04T04:59:34Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > That is what they want, a full audit of every bar. Send them to Boston. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/24 "2025-03-04T05:10:44Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > It’s a dumb plan, BTW, because even if the value of Goldfinger’s private stocks were increased as indicated he would be under suspicion… Well… 1. Goldfinger’s gold holdings have value even if we deem him guilty. If he holds (say) 10% of the world’s gold and he wipes out another 10% then his gold is more valuable. Period. Full stop. The question is can the US throw him in jail so he cannot profit from it? I’m assuming he has that covered. 2. The Hunt brothers almost cornered the silver market. Which was illegal. But they tried. I have never heard an explanation of how they meant to get away with that. Which, in the context of Goldfinger…why can’t he get away with it? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/25 "2025-03-04T05:11:00Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > > [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > > > That is what they want, a full audit of every bar. > > Send them to Boston. Cheers! ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/26 "2025-03-04T05:40:56Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Goldfinger’s gold holdings have value even if we deem him guilty. If he holds (say) 10% of the world’s gold and he wipes out another 10% then his gold is more valuable. Period. Full stop. The question is can the US throw him in jail so he cannot profit from it? I’m assuming he has that covered. Auric Goldfinger would have been known to have participated in detonating a nuclear weapon on US soil. Aside from the loss of his domestic assets, he would have no quarter in any country in the Western Hemisphere; even Switzerland wouldn’t harbor him under those circumstances, and it is doubtful that the Soviet Union would give him refuge. Either he ends up living in Communist China circa 1965, or trying to conceal himself somewhere in South America with all of the other Nazi expatriates. Good luck with that. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > The Hunt brothers almost cornered the silver market. Which was illegal. But they tried. I have never heard an explanation of how they meant to get away with that. Which, in the context of Goldfinger…why can’t he get away with it? What Nelson, Lamar, and William Herbert did on ‘Silver Tuesday’ wasn’t illegal at the time, just very risky as they were leveraged to the hilt and should have ended them in the poorhouse if that they weren’t bailed out to save their brokerage firm. They made a technical violation in terms of not disclosing their stake in that firm but that was just a regulatory issue, not a crime they could have been convicted of in court. > [@dtilque](#): > > Cheers! It’s where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/27 "2025-03-04T05:47:38Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Either he ends up living in Communist China circa 1965, or trying to conceal himself somewhere in South America with all of the other Nazi expatriates. No. A hollowed out volcano. Duh. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/28 "2025-03-04T16:12:23Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > They may do an audit, but Trump, if he goes there, is just going to do a look-see. Toilet shopping for the White House remodel. New thrones for the king! ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/29 "2025-03-04T16:31:01Z")
They’ll need to do another audit after the short-fingered vulgarian leaves. I could certainly imagine him trying to pocket a bar “just for fun”. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/30 "2025-03-04T16:49:59Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Or course, the Chinese bomb that Goldfinger was using was salted with cobalt (and for some reason, iodine, even though that would produce short-lived radioisotopes) so even if gold could be recovered it could not be handled or physically transferred for decades. And this is one way that having the gold coating your entire skin would indeed be deadly. 😁 ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/31 "2025-03-04T18:24:08Z")
I’ve always wondered if this plan made inherently more sense during Bretton Woods and pre Nixon Shock. As someone who has only known a world of pure fiat currency, I have never really understood how destroying something that was artificially pegged to a value would really do anything. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/32 "2025-03-05T01:30:49Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I could certainly imagine him trying to pocket a bar “just for fun”. I can also imagine him not knowing how much solid gold actually weighs. One of those bars is probably too heavy for an octogenarian in poor shape to lift one-handed. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/33 "2025-03-05T02:48:09Z")
Cast gold bars weight ~30 lbm; heavier than you’d want to carry in a pocket but easy enough for most people, especially one still mobile enough to play a decent game of golf (even if he does have to cheat). Gert Fröbe, the actor who played Auric Goldfinger, was actually 50-51 during filming. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/34 "2025-03-05T03:18:13Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > It’s a dumb plan, BTW, because even if the value of Goldfinger’s private stocks were increased as indicated he would be under suspicion, being known to be on the area of the Fed Gold Depository just before the blast and somehow clear of it right afterward. All that iodine and other fallout is going to kill his horses and beautiful ranch. It is basically cutting off one’s nose to smite their face. With better writing you could make the plan smarter, by having Goldfinger create more deniability. It’s a clever idea if you write it correctly, but most Bond movies are very clumsily written. The genius of it is your gold holdings wouldn’t just go up in value proportional to the loss of gold there; they would go up much further during a brief initial panic period. THEN you sell. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/35 "2025-03-05T03:30:50Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > It’s a clever idea if you write it correctly, but most Bond movies are very clumsily written. Most of them are, certainly, and they basically recycle the same plots every four or five movies. Every once in a while you get something exceptional but it’s basically once per actor. For every _Casino Royale_ and _From Russia With Love_, you get stinkers like _SPECTRE_ and _Diamonds Are Forever_. > [@RickJay](#): > > The genius of it is your gold holdings wouldn’t just go up in value proportional to the loss of gold there; they would go up much further during a brief initial panic period. THEN you sell. Except Goldfinger doesn’t want to part with any of his inventory: > _This is gold, Mr Bond. All my life, I have been in love with its color, its brilliance, its divine heaviness. I welcome any enterprise that will increase my stock- which is considerable._ He doesn’t care about money. [He loves goooooooooooolllld!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D1nK7q2i8I&t=153s) Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/36 "2025-03-05T03:34:40Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > With better writing you could make the plan smarter, by having Goldfinger create more deniability. Yes, that’s the biggest flaw in the plan, really. An individual being _known_ for being responsible for nuking the US is going to be hunted down and killed no matter how long it takes or where he runs. No amount of money or legal shenanigans would be a defense, at that point the government wouldn’t care. And seeking sanctuary in another nation is actually a worse option than in real life, in a setting with, well, _Bond_ style super spies/agents/assassins. To be fair, I’ve seen so many examples of rich people thinking they are utterly above the law that it’s not actually a plot hole, since I can certainly see one convincing themselves that they could do something like that and the government would refuse to touch them for it. They’d be wrong, but being arrogant & foolish isn’t a plot hole. Now, if he could lay all the blame on _somebody else_ then the plan should actually increase the value of his gold and he’d have a reasonable chance of actually being alive to enjoy it. I suspect he’d actually come out behind in purely financial terms with all the expenses involved (even ignoring the collateral damage mentioned upthread), but a gold-obsessed nut like him might well not care. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/37 "2025-03-05T04:40:59Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > What Nelson, Lamar, and William Herbert did on ‘Silver Tuesday’ wasn’t illegal at the time, just very risky as they were leveraged to the hilt and should have ended them in the poorhouse if that they weren’t bailed out to save their brokerage firm. After the government changed the rules just to screw them. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/38 "2025-03-05T05:03:04Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > What Nelson, Lamar, and William Herbert did on ‘Silver Tuesday’ wasn’t illegal at the time, just very risky as they were leveraged to the hilt… It was Silver Thursday. If you had only held out for 2 more days… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/39 "2025-03-05T07:09:17Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I can also imagine him not knowing how much solid gold actually weighs. No, Auric Goldfinger would definitely know how much gold weighs – he was involved in smuggling gold, after all, by casting it into boy parts for his car. He would’ve had to have handled it and considered its weight when making sure his car could clear customs (Goldfinger did something similar in the novel, only I think there it was being used for passenger airplane parts). As i noted in my earlier post, he would’ve been well aware of how tough it would be to heft a heavy ingot, but I still can’t believe that he wouldn’t try to take at least one, if only to brag that he had the only surviving un-irradiated gold bar from Fort Knox. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889/40 "2025-03-05T09:18:08Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > For every _Casino Royale_ and _From Russia With Love_, you get stinkers like _SPECTRE_ and _Diamonds Are Forever_ I quite liked “Diamonds are Forever” but doing cursory research it was released before I was born. I think I watched it at around age eight, mid 80s, so not the thorough cynical critic I am today. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-have-actually-happened-to-the-gold-in-the-goldfinger-scenario/1014889.md?page=3)