Bank of England holds 4700t of gold

Stumbled on the value of gold the BOE holds on custodial basis from a link in a Golden Sextant article.

Unfortunately, the annual reports only list gold value from 2005 onwards (note that BOE financial year end is 28 Feb):

Year, GBP value, ounces (based on GBP london PM fix on 28 feb)

2005, 25b, 110,368,454

2006, 35b, 110,035,903

2007, 43b, 126,857,129

2008, 72b, 147,283,237

2009, 102b, 152,282,217

Interesting that it was stable from 05 to 06, then starts increasing. 152 million oz = approx 4,700t, or 3% of all gold ever produced (160,000t). Hard to read anything into it as the holdings include central bank metal (reported in other figures) as well as other bullion bank and institutional metal, so you couldn't just add it to other reported figures as it would result in doubling up.

However, it is another indicator of increasing interest in gold as well as giving us an insight into the amount of metal held in London. On that last matter, consider that total COMEX registered and eligible stocks are currently 10.74 moz compared to the BOE stocks of 152.28 moz.