New York Gold Exchange

The New York Gold Exchange was an exchange formed shortly after the beginning of the American Civil War for the purpose of creating an open market for transactions involving gold and the government-created paper currency, the greenback. Established in 1862, it closed in 1897.

The exchange was established in 1862 in a basement on New Street. The exchange was created during the American Civil War, when the Union issued paper money to fund the war effort. Gold trading was initially banned at the , which viewed the practice as unpatriotic speculation in wartime. This was because Confederate victories resulted in an increase in the price of gold relative to the greenback dollar, causing gold traders to sing "Dixie" in the Exchange when they received news of a Confederate victory.Abraham Lincoln at one point publicly expressed the wish that "every one of them [the gold speculators] had his devilish head shot off."

The banishment of gold trading from the New York Stock Exchange "barely halted the trade for an instant" as gold traders relocated to various basements on Wall Street, William Street, and Broad Street. Trading moved successively from "an ill-lit den called the Coal Hole" to Gilpin's News Room, also called Gilpin's Gold Room. It is unclear who Gilpin was.

On June 17, 1864, Congress, angered by the speculation, passed an act prohibiting gold trades anywhere except for brokers' offices. This briefly shut down the exchange, but unregulated street transactions continued. Speculation was not stymied, and the price of gold relative to greenbacks rose. Congress repealed the law two weeks later.

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