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Intel - History
Gold Reserve vs Gold Standard
aka Gold Species

"In God we trust.
All others we monitor."

• Countries may only print as much currency as gold that they possess
• Benefits: Removes room for unrestricted hyperinflationary printing of currency, like Weimar Germany experienced (albeit for a different cause)
• Paper can be traded in for gold

• Drawbacks: Fundamental premise is that man cannot be trusted to responsibly print money without possessing gold.
• No opportunity to provide productive credits (though debt financing is possible)
• Popular with empires and amongst oligarchs, who are most likely to control gold mines as well as the metals exchange market

• Countries are not restricted from printing more currency than the gold that they possess
• Benefits: Countries not subject to the arbitrariness of the metals market for acquiring gold, thereby freeing up the economy to grow
• Paper cannot be traded in for gold
• Some value is assigned to the gold, commensurate to the cost of purchasing, processing into bars, storing and guarding it. This is essentially to assure that in the end you are not merely producing worthless paper, and that there is some value assigned to the paper

• Works best under fixed exchange rates
• Permits long-term trade, so the dollar and the peso have the same relationship now and ten years from now, which encourages more trade than monetarist free trade
• Drawbacks: There is a risk that the government will print more currency than it's economy can actually support. The elected representatives of the government provide oversight, to keep hyperinflation in check (which obviously is susceptible to corruption)
• Only way to provide productive credits (in contrast with debt financing)
• This is the monetary policy advocated by Abraham Lincoln et al American System Economists