Excerpt from The Gold Room: And the New York Stock Exchange and Clearing House
For nearly a fortnight after the New York banks suspended specie payments, on the 31st of December, 1861, there was no regular gold market. The transactions in the precious metals had been confined to the counters of the dealers in bullion and uncurrent money, who asked for it a small but gradually advancing premium. The first formal dealings in gold took place in Wall street - or rather in William street - on Monday the 13th of January, 1862, and all the transactions on that day were at 103. The existence of the New York Gold Room practically began at that date - although the Gold Exchange was not organized until a year and three quarters afterwards. Thenceforward gold was regularly dealt, both at the Stock Exchange and on the Street. The stock-brokers, however, deemed it unpatriotic to buy gold, and - believing the premium could not long be maintained - they had a penchant for selling it "short" or, in other words, for future delivery, without having it in possession, hoping for a decline that would allow them to buy at a profit, and so cover their contracts. But finding that it continued to rise, they desisted from this, and ultimately passed a resolution refusing to deal in it at all at the Board. To this they steadily adhered ever afterwards, excepting that when the Black Friday panic occurred, involving the closing of the Gold Room, they for the time being provided for gold dealings, and an attempt was made to establish a gold department of the Stock Exchange, but the proposition was rejected.
The early infancy of the Gold Room was passed in the "Coal Hole" in William street, between Beaver and Exchange Place, and just below the passage-way then leading to the Stock Exchange - a dark, repulsive basement, since improved, and converted into a restaurant. The apartment was shared by its first inmates, a host of stock operators and "curb-stone" brokers - a class which has since become extinct - who afterwards organized as the Open Board of Brokers. Although speculation in gold soon became active, the premium ruled low for six months after the suspension.
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