The ion beam current, which is quantitative measure for the deposited amount of material, can be monitored during the deposition process.

Because most merchant-adventurers sailing from the Kingdom of England did not return, they could deposit money with an underwriter upon leaving and, upon their return, receive five times the deposited amount.

However, in January 1992 it announced that this action was a "betrayal of the people of the Baltic states" and that it would return the originally deposited amount of gold, now worth about 90 million pound sterling, to the three Baltic states.