When storing gold and silver outside of your home (you can read my first article about home storage here), the most important thing to keep in mind is that you want to store your metals outside of our financial system, at a highly secure and insured private location. You store your gold and silver at home in case you need quick access during any kind of crisis and because it’s where you have the most control over it. You store your gold and silver at a private vault or safety deposit box in case your home is hit by thieves, our financial system deteriorates or if you have stacked up so much gold and silver that your home is turning into a mini Fort Knox. Let’s go over two onshore store and secure strategies now, private vaults and safety deposit boxes.
Private Custodial Vault Storage
Private custodial vault storage is how I store and secure my metals after I’ve built up and secured a war chest at my house. Once you buy gold or silver from an online dealer, some of them will only offer to ship it to you but some of them will store and secure it for you too. As a custodian of your metal, they can also sell it on your behalf if you ask them. There are a couple kinds of private custodial vault storage to consider.
To begin, you always want to use a custodian who offers you “allocated” gold and silver. “Allocated” means that your gold and silver is not listed as an asset on the custodian’s financial books. The precious metals are legally yours and titled in your name. If a bankruptcy were to occur with the storage company, the government or creditors can’t touch your metals. Never store any unallocated gold or silver. If you run into a dealer/custodian who doesn’t offer allocated storage of some kind, just have the metal delivered to your house instead.
Allocated and segregated vault storage means that your metals are stored separately from other metals and titled under your name. The exact pieces of gold or silver you buy from the dealer are put into a secure container, sealed and stamped with your name and account number. For a monthly storage fee, your custodian/dealer secures, separates and stores your metal from other customers’ metals. You can also have your metals delivered to your home at any time or as your custodian, they can sell your metal on your behalf at your direction and transfer the cash directly into your bank account or mail you a check.
Allocated, un-segregated vault storage is almost the same as allocated/segregated except that the custodian/dealer makes note of how many ounces of gold or silver you bought but not the exact pieces. Your metal is not listed on the company’s balance sheet and it is titled in your name. The vault stores tons of gold and silver and you own a certain amount of it but they don’t specifically put your metal in its own little box with your name on it. Because of this, the storage fees are usually cheaper when compared to segregated storage.
With both segregated and un-segregated options, make sure the procedure to sell your metals or take delivery of your metals is a quick and easy process without many hoops to jump through. Double check that the vault they store your precious metals in is highly secure and insured as well. Click here to see the private custodian and vault I use the most or refer to the resources section coming up. I store a ton of my metals with the custodian here: www.stacksilvergetgold.com/ownx
Safe Deposit Boxes
Another option for storing your metals onshore but out of your house is a safe deposit box. If you already have a ton of metal in your home, this might be the way to go. There are two kinds of boxes to consider; a safe deposit box at a bank and a safe deposit box at a private storage company.
I do not like bank safe deposit boxes. I despise them. Banks in the United States are part of the financial system. If a crisis occurs, you may not be able to get into the bank to get your precious metal out of your box. Banks are subject to the will of the government and, in my opinion, want as much control over your wealth as possible. The risks of keeping your gold and silver in a bank include bank holiday and seizures as well as banks cooperating with government information requests without your knowledge which they do on a daily basis in the United States. More recently, we’ve seen documented instances of banks losing customers safe deposit boxes and some banks are now instituting policies of disallowing cash or coins to be stored in the boxes. Even though getting a safe deposit box is as easy as walking in to your local bank, I’d stay away from using bank safe deposit boxes if I were you.
My contempt for bank safe deposit boxes doesn’t mean all safe deposit boxes are bad, there happens to be another kind.
Private, anonymous safe deposit boxes are the way I roll. They’re probably the most under the radar option for storing and securing your gold and silver besides burying it somewhere in the woods and using a treasure map to find it.
Essentially all you do is rent a safe deposit box from a private storage or vault company. Going offshore to do this is even better and more private (more on that in the next section). Private safe deposit boxes aren’t controlled by any bank and if the markets crash, you don’t have to be afraid that you won’t have access to your box due to a bank holiday. You’ll find an example of one of my favorite US based private and anonymous safe deposit box companies in the resources section.
While building up your gold and silver bullion collection, your first goal should be to store a good amount at your home. Then start buying and storing your metal with a US based custodian/dealer who contracts with a highly secured and insured private vault. If you already have a big stack of silver and gold then alternatively, you could rent a private anonymous safe deposit box and fill it up.
You can learn more about gold, silver and crypto-currencies, including how to safely and secretly store them in my new online training program located at: