But that article talks about things at a high level.
If there's a gold standard, that just means that the value of paper
money is determined in terms of gold, and that under some
circumstances, the paper money can be redeemed for gold at a
fixed rate.
In the practical level, even back in the 19th century, people didn't
usually carry gold coins in their pockets. They carried silver and
copper coins - and paper money for larger amounts. Gold coins
existed, and the value of paper money was determined by gold.
but paper money and not gold coins were what was normally used
even then.
So why would people - even if they were wealthy people - have
had gold coins in their pockets the way this story suggests?
That took some thinking about matters that were details of
everyday life in those times - things that weren't discussed in
that Wikipedia article, even if they were consequences of a
widespread gold standard.
So I think my conclusion is reasonable, and informative: that
the reason countries minted gold coins wasn't just to have an
internal unit of foreign exchange for transactions between banks
and the government or other esoteric uses, but instead they
had a practical use - a currency that would be easier for the country's
citizens to use than paper money when travelling in a foreign country.
For the reasons I noted before: gold's value is universal, whereas
paper money is just paper unless you know how much it is worth
and that it isn't fake.
And so the spectators, many of them being tourists from Russia
or the United States, had a *reason* to have gold coins in their
pockets as they were watching this game being played in
Germany.
John Savard