Update 4th November: With the Swiss Referendum coming up, most people forget one simple fact:
To back the Swiss Franc with gold Switzerland would have to quit the IMF membership.
Using the example of Switzerland we can document the procedure of the IMF. Until 1996 the Swiss franc was backed by gold. At the time if they would have done a current evaluation of gold vs. currency then they would have discovered than gold would have risen by over 50% against their currency.
That means they had 50% more gold than printed currency.
Why was this changed?
When Switzerland joined the IMF in 1992 under pressure, they noticed in 1996, that in article 2b, paragraph IV of the „Articles of Agreement“ is written: „A binding of currencies to gold is forbidden. “
So what now? At the beginning of March 1997 a partial revision was passed, that the franc had to be decoupled from gold. On 31/12/1997 Switzerland announced the reduction of their gold reserves to 25%.
Switzerland sold about half of their 2,590 tons of gold – the third biggest gold reserve after the USA and Germany at that time.
Now Switzerland holds 1,040.1 tons. Switzerland was the last gold backed currency in the world – until 1997.
Find here current official statistics:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/8335336/The-countries-with-the-largest-gold-reserves.html