New York Gold Exchange

Gold trading was initially banned at the New York Stock Exchange, which viewed the practice as unpatriotic speculation in wartime.

[3] On June 17, 1864, Congress, angered by the speculation, passed an act prohibiting gold trades anywhere except for brokers' offices.

[7] Other founders of the Gold Exchange included Levi P. Morton, a youthful J. P. Morgan, and other Wall Street figures.

[3] Business historian Robert Sobel has called the gold exchange "the most informal and certainly the wildest market in American history" because of its wild profit and loss swings, its high rate of bankruptcy and frequent occurrences of "short-changing, adulteration, and late delivery" of gold.

[5] After a series of robberies of gold, brokers at the exchange set up a system of private certificates which could be drawn upon deposits at the Bank of New York.

[9] Gold trading became less profitable as the stock market became more stable, and the Exchange stopped operating on January 1, 1897, after specie resumption.