Gold price history
Gold price in 1971
Gold averaged $41 an ounce in 1971. That was +14.2% on 1970.
Gold today: …
What happened in 1971
The US ended the dollar's link to gold in August 1971. From then on, the gold price could float freely.
Month by month in 1971
| Month | Average price |
|---|---|
| January | $38 |
| February | $39 |
| March | $39 |
| April | $39 |
| May | $41 |
| June | $40 |
| July | $41 |
| August | $43 |
| September | $42 |
| October | $43 |
| November | $43 |
| December | $43 |
1971 on the long-run chart
The large dot is 1971. Yearly averages, log scale.
Yearly and monthly figures are averages of daily prices, in US dollars per troy ounce. Source: World Bank Commodity Markets (Pink Sheet), CC BY 4.0, via the open gold-prices dataset. Daily highs and lows were higher and lower than the monthly averages. Latest month in the data: September 2026.
Questions people ask
What was the price of gold in 1971?
Gold averaged about $41 an ounce in 1971. The highest month was August ($43) and the lowest was January ($38).
How much is gold now compared with 1971?
See the live figure at the top of this page. It compares today's price with the 1971 average of $41. Past prices don't tell you what gold will do next.
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