Between 1999 and 2002, former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown sold 60% of Britain’s gold reserves at an average price of $275 per ounce — a move now known as the “Brown Bottom.”
📊 The numbers are brutal:
• 400 tons of gold ≈ 12,860,000 oz$XAU
• Sold at $275/oz ≈ $3.5 billion
• Worth at $5,000/oz today ≈ $64 billion
That’s a difference of over $60 billion.
What made it even worse?
Brown announced the sales in Parliament before executing them, causing gold prices to crash immediately. Prices stayed suppressed until the UK finished selling — and then gold went on a massive multi-year bull run.
A textbook example of:
❌ Terrible timing
❌ Poor communication
❌ Selling a hard asset at generational lows
History doesn’t repeat… but it sure rhymes.
