3 ways to store your metals

Bed? Bank? Private vault?

Paper v Physical

Before we crack on and explain the various ways that you can store your metals, it is very important to point out that we are talking about physical metal and not the paper ETF’s that you may have heard of/seen advertised.

Usual disclaimer applies but you should always look to have the physical metal as this then truly out of the system. Paper ETF’s only give you a claim over some metal. The biggest challenge then being that if everyone tries to claim their metal at the same time - there won’t be enough metal to share out to everyone.

Always aim to have the physical metal!

Once you have them, then you can store them in various ways.

1 - Home

Storing metals at home is quite common because it makes accessibility very easy.

If you feel very uncomfortable about storing your metals at home then that is perfectly normal. You don’t have to store metals in your home but most people will as they do not want to pay for storage and/or want some of it readily available just in case the worst happens.

That is perfectly common and the decision is ultimately yours. Think about risk v reward.

There are so many ways to store your metals at home. Some of the best places I’ve heard of are:

• Putting it in the freezer (in some Tupperware labelled as ‘Chilli’ or ‘dog food’)

• Putting it under the floorboards

• Burying it in the garden

• Putting it in a plant pot

• Creating a secret compartment in the home

Do not think about putting it under the mattress. That is such a common approach and in the event of a burglary ever happening, chances are that the mattress will be tampered with. Try to think one step ahead of the game.

If you store your metals at home then you also might have to deal with the hassle of telling your home insurance company. This can be quite a ballache as the prices of metals fluctuate, meaning you’d have to constantly keep the insurance people up to date so that they can provide you with the right levels of insurance.

2 - Storing at the bank

Do not leave your metals in bank storage boxes. Quite simply put, if there is a run on the bank, a bank holiday or the bank closes - then how easy will it be to get a hold of your precious metals? Chances are that you are going to have some difficulty in achieving this.

Secondly, I am going to guess that the point of you wanting to have gold/silver/metals is that you want something that is out of the banking system?

Therefore, why would you buy metals just to entrust their storage and security with the very people that you are trying to get away from?

That just does not make sense.

3 - Using a specialised dealer/vault storage

There are a lot of specialised dealers out there and they will have vault storage available, mostly through trusted third parties such as Loomis/Brinks.

Some examples of dealers here in the UK would be Chards (Blackpool), Sharps Pixley (London) and Bullion By Post (Birmingham). Many other dealers are available but these 3 are ones that I’ve worked with/communicated with in some capacity before.

Having this sort of storage is great as it is fully allocated (i.e. in your name), fully audited, insured and secure. It keeps the metals out of the banking system and these companies normally have very straight forward buy back systems - making it very liquid.

There are storage fees that will need to be paid. Do not sniff at this as they are normally quite low (in comparison to the worth of the metal itself) and this will probably make you sleep easier at night.

I highly recommend going down this route as it makes the most sense.

Happy storing.