Abstract
This chapter explores how British authorities created a market for gold in London. During the First World War, central banks came to control most of the world's gold, which could not be freely traded and was no longer a commodity in any normal sense. When the pound sterling formally went off gold and began to float against the US dollar in 1919, the Bank of England invited N.M. Rothschild & Sons to open a “free” market for gold in London. In this marketplace at the center of the international payments system, only five brokers were present, representing anonymous clients. London was in fact the channel for some two-thirds of the world's gold production, and international movements of this gold could induce enormous economic shifts.
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