How To Securely Store Your Precious Metals

The short answer to where one should store their silver and precious metals is to store it in as many a diverse location as possible. In other words, do not keep it all in one place, as this holds a much higher risk of you getting completely screwed than if you held your metals in numerous places. This is similar to how one might choose to diversify their silver holdings by buying not one type of products, but as many different products from as many different origins as possible. So, be sure to vary where your silver and other precious metals are stored. There is always the possibility that they could be stolen, confiscated, or lost due to third-party risk.

The silver and precious metal buyer essentially has limited choices as to where to store precious metals. This is simplified into two categories: self-storage or paid storage with a company or bank.

If you decide to store them yourself, be sure that only you know where all of the metals are. It might be useful in the event of emergency or your death that one confidant has some awareness as to where the precious metals are.

There are advantages of self-storage insofar as only you have a record or paper trail of the holding.  But, be sure that your heirs or loved ones know where they are so that they can benefit off of your insight in the event you are no longer of a condition to manage the wealth. Also, keep in mind that, regardless of your privacy, having receipts of your purchases could save you on capital gain taxes.

When you store or hide precious metals for yourself, you have two options: storing them on a property you own or storing them on property you do not own.  Subdividing these two options brings more options to the table, such as either hiding the precious metals or storing them in a vault or safe.

Hiding your precious metals is a very viable solution to this universal problem of precious metals storage.  But, be sure not to hide them in common places like the cookie jar or under the mattress.  A solution followed by many silver buyers is to bury them in the yard. But, do not tell anybody this is your intention or what you have done. Nobody.  Be sure you own the property where your precious metals are buried and assume metal detectors can locate metals up to four feet underground.  Placing a large rock over your burial spot, one that needs technical tools to move, is a nice touch. Why not build a patio over the location? Then thieves would have a difficult time accessing them and you won’t want to sell them before their time. (If you store your metals yourself, consider placing them in non-metallic casing of some sort so as to make it harder to detect by dogs or metal detectors.)

The same goes for putting your precious metals literally in the structure of your home. This technique has been shown to the public through movies depicting tyrannical countries, where a typewriter or journal is kept in a brick or a floorboard. Often these movies show the hiding spot being discovered by militarized police, but nevertheless the idea is intriguing.

A good idea I have come across for storage of valuables is behind a mirror, but not just any ordinary mirror. After you have carved out a hole in the chosen wall of your own property and placed in your silver, gold, platinum and palladium, then drill or screw a large, heavy-weight mirror (of course, if you live with a significant other, it must be a classy looking mirror) into the wall. Since most would-be thieves spend an average less than ten minutes in a victim’s home, they would not have time-enough to take said mirror down.

If you choose to vault them in a property of yours, ensure the safe is bolted and weighs at least 500 pounds.  If you have a basement, put the metals there. Do not put the metals in a garage that is easily accessible and visible from the outside. Place a blanket over the safe, wherever it is, and disguise it via décor.

No matter which option of the previous two you use, do your best to do the work yourself.  Moving a large safe is very difficult, and most often is done by contractors or delivery personnel, but do your best to keep the project “in-house.”

Many people say never store valuables at home, and they raise interesting points. A safe or superb hiding place goes for nil if a burglary turns into a robbery and you find yourself with a gun in your face or in the faces of your family.  Read this story here where many were killed so that thieves would attain what was stored in a safe:

GONZALES, La. (AP) — Ascension Parish Sheriff Jeff Wiley says a $500,000 coin collection is the likely reason home invaders killed a 74-year-old man and his 50-year-old stepson, leaving the older man’s wife critically injured.

He tells The Advocate (http://bit.ly/y3wGYi) that deputies were sent to the house late Saturday because relatives had been unable to reach the family by phone.

Wiley says nobody answered the door, so deputies broke in. They found 72-year-old Shirley Marchand alive, and the bodies of Robert Irwin Marchand and 50-year-old Douglas Dooley — the son of Shirley Marchand.

Wiley says their throats all had been cut. He says they also had other cuts and appeared to have been bludgeoned.

Shirley Marchand was in a hospital Sunday.

Wiley says the safe that held the coin collection is missing.

The other storage option for your silver is to store your precious metals somewhere other than your property. I do not suggest hiding the wealth on public lands, as then it is owned by the federal government as much as it is by you. Instead, the other options leave us with the myriad companies who store precious metals for profit.  When you do this, just like in our other situations, there are also a number of risks. Obviously the facility is aware of your stash and there is also a paper trail. The government can then know your position.

One of the most common forms of storage people use outside of their personal jurisdiction is the Safe Deposit Box. In this case, there does not need be a paper trail. A major drawback of a safe deposit box is limited access to your stash. Only when the bank is open does one have access to the safe deposit box.

The safe deposit box is inconvenient in an emergency. Let’s say the grid goes out – in this case your holdings are also not safe. Or, if there is a bank run – in this case your holdings are not safe. These are the types of situations for which you bought your precious metals, and in a safe deposit box they are inaccessible.

There is obviously collusion between banks and the government. They are basically one entity. The banks cannot exist without the governments of the world, and this is why they drive policy. The government is essentially the all-time military police of the international banking cartel.

A recent example of a problem with safe deposit boxes is from 2008, when in the United Kingdom thousands of safe deposit boxes were forcibly broken into by law enforcement and items inside stolen by the state. The official story was the raid was against money launderers, but official stories are propaganda. The renters of the boxes had to prove ownership of the items in order to reclaim them.

There are thousands of cases out of California where so-called ‘dead’ boxes (those that had not been accessed in years) were opened and the contents stolen and sold by the state. So, this means that you must oft check on your holdings when they are in a safe deposit box.

If you do decide on a safe deposit box, be sure to select at least two local banks. Although you do not want to be too far from your possessions perhaps holding some in the safe deposit box of a different city is advisable.

You may choose to store your metal at a larger depository. These may or may not be local to where you live. The advantage of a depository is their experience in storing metals and their much better security measures. Important questions rest on how safe the country or location of the depository is; if you can visit your metal; is it allocated or unallocated; is it insured and how will they handle state intervention?

There are many options for storage from Das Safe in Vienna, Austria, the Delaware Depository in the United States, the VIA Mat facilities of Canada, Germany and Switzerland, etc.

· DasSafe www.dassafe.com (Germany)

· First State www.fsdepository.com (Delaware)

· Global Gold globalgold.com (Switzerland)

· Gold Switzerland GoldSwitzerland.com (Switzerland)

· Idaho Armored vaults www.goldsilvervault.com (Idaho and U.S.)

An inventive option for precious metals storage is to go down to your trusted coin shop or bullion dealer and inquire with them about possible storage options. But, do not expect something for free. If the coin shop obligingly agrees and breezes through any of the necessary paperwork, suspect that they intend to “flip” your metals. That means that your metals might be constantly stored at distributors or with courier services. Approach them with the idea that they can “flip” your metal and then charge them a reasonable fee for your service. But, with this option there would have to be paperwork, as you would want yourself legally covered if the company were to go bankrupt or close-shop. Keep in mind, however, that even with this paperwork you likely would never see your metals again.

In conclusion, the best choices are the varied choices. Do not fall in love with one storage location. Instead, diversify your silver storage into as many of the previous locations as possible. Internationalize yourself, and store many of your metals in a nation other than your own. What follows is a possible program for you and your precious metals. (Green is strongly recommended; orange is risky but recommended; yellow is recommended; and red is not recommended):

1.At home, buried or in a wall behind a drilled-in or screwed-in mirror. (recommended due to privacy, ease of access for you, and lack of access to thieves (government or otherwise). High risk in event you are taken hostage, especially in the event somebody learns of your location.

2. Safe Deposit Boxes, 2-3 of them located in your city and the next closest city to yours and abroad. (risky because banks are owned by criminals who leach of society and steal taxpayer money with reckless abandon. Recommended because it is a discrete and clean option should a major banking or environmental emergency take place thus compromising your stack)

3. A Local Coin Shop (recommended if you can trust the shop. Can be discrete and also can bring in extra cash if you take the earlier recommendation of charging a fee for your metals to be flipped. Major risks here in event coin shop goes broke, screws you or gets shutdown by the government. In this last event, assume all metal is stolen.

4. A depository (highly visible to government and other authorities). These depositories are most likely major targets of “officialdom.”