How to store physical gold, and silver at home.. safely

How do you store physical gold and silver at home safely?

While it might seem like buying common mints of coins would yield a lower return than buying less common mints, the payoff comes when you are able to easily sell one of these more popular mints of coins when you need the cash. It is relatively easy to buy gold bullion, and once you have purchased it you don’t really need to do anything but store it.

Vote Vote to see results Total Votes: Not a Scientific Survey. Results may not total 100% due to rounding. “The bank doesn’t insure the contents of a safe deposit box," says Clark. "If you want to feel really comfortable and secure, you have to buy separate insurance, which can be expensive, and it’s hard to get for precious metals in safe deposit boxes. You also have the security risk going to and from the bank." Finally, size can be an issue. If an investor chooses to make a large investment in coins, the holding could be bulky, exceeding the capacity of the ordinary box. Storing your gold at home also has practical considerations, says David Small, a New Jersey-based gold-bullion buyer. “If you buy a safe, you should buy it with cash, and install it yourself as best you can,” says Small, noting the fewer people know you are buying gold and storing it on your property, the better. “If you are buying it because you are skeptical of mainstream financial institutions, you want it in a place where if something does go wrong, the government can’t confiscate it like they did in 1933,” adds Small. While he started out purchasing gold bullion in bar form, Small says more recently he has been purchasing American Eagles and Canadian Maple Leafs because he believes “they are more fungible.”

“If you lose it, it’s gone,” Clark says. “It’s not like your stock certificate where you can pay an administrative fee and have it replaced. If you lose your 10-ounce gold bar, it’s gone. You can insure them under certain circumstances. We ship precious metals to people who want to bury it in the backyard, literally, or store it in their garage in a hidden place. They feel good about it because it’s within reach, but it’s fraught with all kinds of problems.”

“The coins don’t need to have an assay, something that certifies the gold,” he explains. “If you buy Eagles they’re very liquid, they’re internationally recognized. If you store them in a safe deposit box, you can be sure if you go retrieve them someday and take them to a coin dealer they will buy them over the counter, without exception.”

Aquarium: For those with the option, storing a gold bar / gold coin cache inside an aquarium or fish tank is worth considering, among aquatic plants and fish tank paraphernalia.

You bought gold and silver to help keep your family financially safer in times of turmoil. But now it’s up to you to safeguard your bars and coins until that time comes, which could be in 10 days, 10 years, or some time far in the future.

The precious metal has reached record high prices in recent days. A survey of 1,000 people by Magnify Money found that one out of six have invested in gold or other precious metals since May, and about half of Americans are seriously thinking about buying gold. (This after Gallup reported in April that Americans had cooled somewhat on stocks as a long-term investment.)

Check out hidden camera video recorder systems that are disguised as an alarm clock, wall clock, smoke detector, clothing hook and even a light bulb. Most of these can record many hours of surveillance video and allow you to monitor it live, over the internet, from anywhere in the world, on your cell phone or computer. If you go this route, be sure to get a system with plenty of memory.