1882 $500 Gold Certificate Ingot Tribute

Used as a form of paper currency from 1863 to 1933, Gold Certificates enabled the bearer to redeem the corresponding amount in gold from U.S. government holdings. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt removed U.S. currency from the gold standard and made it illegal for private citizens to own gold, thus rendering the use of gold certificates obsolete. The $500 Gold Certificate was the most popular denomination of these valuable pieces of paper, mostly because it featured our greatest President: Abraham Lincoln. In 1933, private ownership of gold was banned and most "Lincoln” $500 Gold Certificates were confiscated and destroyed. Today, there are only two 1882 "Lincoln” $500 Gold Certificates known to still exist. One is locked away in the Federal Reserve Bank Collection. The other isprivately owned, and on January 13, 2014, it sold at auction for a staggering $1,410,000!