The tightening of Federal Reserve policy from 1928 onward prompted a global unwinding of credit later dubbed the Great Contraction.

[1] With support from Congress, Roosevelt enacted a series of banking and currency reforms that effectively nationalized monetary gold.

In both cases the district and appeal courts upheld the Gold Clause Resolution and denied additional payment.

Nortz v. United States 294 U.S. 317 (1935): The owner of $106,300 in federal gold certificates surrendered them as required by Executive Order 6102, receiving only their face value in currency.

Perry v. United States 294 U.S. 330 (1935): The owner of a $10,000 Liberty Bond sued in the Court of Claims for an additional $7,000 representing the dollar's devaluation.

As a result, it held that the bond holder had no cause of action because, in receiving currency that he could lawfully possess rather than gold coin which he could not, he had suffered no monetary loss.

As part of the subsequent reforms to Bretton Woods institutions, President Gerald Ford signed an act that terminated legal prohibitions on private gold transactions as of December 31, 1974.

[5] This amendment has been held to apply even to lease contracts that originated earlier and were transferred;[6] however, in cases involving railroad bonds that spanned the entire gold ownership ban, courts have rejected the argument that the amendment reactivated the obligation to pay in gold, on the grounds that bonds are "issued" only to their original holders.

These coins are legal tender at their face value but the Mint offers them only as collectibles at their much higher bullion value, not as a form of payment by the government.