I assume even though it became illegal for people to hold gold, that the dollars held by foreign countries were still convertible to gold and thus the standard still worked to a degree. I'm sure things may have changed in WW2, but that's a special case.

Still, I appreciate you bringing up your point.

> that the dollars held by foreign countries

Ah yes. Countries who also made it illegal to hold gold. There's a reason why James Bond villains always used gold, because gold-users were considered criminals in basically the entirety of the 1st world (ie: USA, Britain, etc. etc.)

When everyone's trading paper notes and pretending that Gold was a thing (when it wasn't, and hasn't been since the 1930s for *everyone* thanks to the world-wide Great Depression), its all just... fakery.

Today's system is way more honest about the fakery, that's all. And even then, the Gold Standard of the 1910s was built upon the ruins of the Silver+Gold standards of the 1800s (essentially stealing the wealth from the Silver Standard / Silver Dollars). Its all fakery all the way back to the US Continental Dollar (which was inflated into worthlessness, almost on purpose, to pay for the Revolutionary War).

As I said earlier: its turtles all the way down. Its fake, and always has been fake since the dawn of our country. The important thing seems to be to keep the units consistent (which we have been doing for decades).

> illegal for people to hold gold

Note that "hold gold" was defined by EO 6102 as more than $100 of gold.

So that's like, 1/10th of an ounce today would make you illegal by 1930s through 1970s standards.