Once you’ve committed to purchasing gold, silver or other precious metals like platinum bullion, storing and protecting them becomes paramount. While bullion is fairly easy to store in small amounts, if you’re purchasing in larger quantities, it’s a good idea to find a way to protect your investment. The following are some common ways to store your gold and silver once purchased.
Safes, Obvious and Not Obvious
Easily the best way to protect your investment if you’re going to store it at home is some sort of safe. While block safes are common and some are heavy enough to be difficult to move, a common home idea for precious metals investors is to create a bookcase safe. There are ways to hide gold and silver, as well as important documents in books, walls, and other areas.
The main drawback, of course, is cost, unless you were planning on purchasing a bookcase or the like to begin with. The alternative is a standard heavy and fireproof safe in an innocuous location, preferably a very heavy one.
A Handy Safe Deposit Box
If building a compartmentalized book case seems a bit too much, the easiest way to safely store precious metals is in a safe deposit box at your local bank. While vault space is usually available (for a much higher fee), it is rare for safe deposit boxes to get robbed, largely because of their sheer number and the wide variety of things stored in them. Because of this, a safe deposit box is a low-cost, straightforward option for when you’ve started trading in cash for precious metals and you don’t know where to put them.
There are, of course, downsides to the safe deposit box— with precious few exceptions, access to your investment largely depends upon your bank policies. It is unlikely you will have access to your investment during normal business hours, and in case of an emergency getting access to someone who can give you that access is notoriously unreliable. That said, storing in a safe deposit box is by far the easiest way to securely store your metals with little effort.
Storing Your Wealth Abroad
Another popular option for investors is the offshore holding company. While this is usually a pretty poor idea unless you are storing large amounts of precious metals, there are a number of advantages to consider. The main advantage is that if you are looking to buy more precious metals in bulk, often such companies are capable of getting direct access to near-spot rates to increase your holding.
The obvious downside, however, is accessibility: unless you plan to move to where your holdings are, you will never see them without taking back physical possession. The economic and political climate of your choice of storage country is also important.