Almost thirty years ago, the Czech Republic pressured its national bank to quickly sell its gold, fearing that if it did not do so quickly enough, other central banks would beat it to the punch and it would have no choice but to sell at an even lower price. In the end, however, it sold this precious metal at historically low prices.
Within a few months, the Czech National Bank (ČNB) disposed of gold that had been accumulated since the days of Austria-Hungary, whose central bank at the time had created the basis for the new state's gold reserves by transferring more than a dozen tons of the yellow metal when Czechoslovakia was founded. During the same period, this reserve was expanded with gold from the collection of the newly formed republic's gold treasury, which at the time consisted of voluntary contributions from its citizens.
As shown in the published table, the Czech central bank disposed of approximately 51 tons of gold at the end of the 1990s. It earned approximately 16 billion Czech korunas for it, which, due to inflation, corresponds to less than 40 billion korunas (almost 1.65 billion euros) today. If it sold the same amount of gold on the current market, it would earn 170 billion Czech korunas (more than seven billion euros), which in real terms – after taking inflation into account – is about 130 billion korunas more (around 5.35 billion euros).
One specific example illustrates the CNB's urgent need to sell gold at that time. In 1998, the victorious powers of World War II dissolved the Tripartite Commission for the Return of Gold Stolen by the Nazis. As part of the final settlement, the CNB received approximately 330 kilograms of gold from this commission.
