Where NOT To Store Gold, For 1
I read an article from the NY Times today that caught my eye and ultimately had be doing what I almost never do.
I jumped on twitter to respond to the author and tell him that just ONE of the points in his article was somewhere between balderdash and complete lack of understanding. For whatever reason, people of status who would never even open your email will read and possibly even engage with you on twitter (with a 140 character limit, of course – which I read may change soon).
One thing the article did do was reinforce what we have been saying for a long time – NEVER store Gold in a bank safe deposit box!
That is, of course, unless you want it to be easily accessible to anyone with a badge of one kind or another (I’m guessing a low level bureaucrat from the FDA or Fish & Game could get access if they wanted).
Does Owning Gold Make You A Villain?
(Yes, we are James Bond fans here and since the NY Times brought it up …)
Problems With The Article
Let’s start with problems in the NY Times article itself:
- Click bait headline: “The New Jersey Psychic With a Box of Swiss Gold”. Ok, I get it, you have to get people’s attention. But “Swiss Gold”? Really. All the person did was buy a Gold bar from a reputable refinery; it has NOTHING more to do with Switzerland than buying a box of Swiss Miss hot chocolate from the grocery store.
- Next, the story starts with detectives entering the Wells Fargo bank with a search warrant. What THIS reader really wants to know is how they found that the box existed at that bank. THAT could have been a good story!
- Exaggeration #1: Just because they crossed the river from New York City to New Jersey does tick some technical law enforcement boxes making it a Federal crime I suppose but calling it “multistate” network just because they traveled a few miles and happened to cross a State line is hype in my book.
- Drag James Bond into this? They found some Gold bars in a safe deposit box and described them as: “treasures generally favored by Bond villains“! Wow! So if you own and Gold bars (not sure about coins) this NY Times writer is willing to categorize you with villains. Are you just a little bit bothered by that? Just hype? Perhaps all just innocent fun?
- PAMP bars ONLY available here: “The company is based in Switzerland, and in North America, its gold is sold exclusively at a single location”. Come on Michael Wilson (Interestingly, a different Michael Wilson now works with Barbara Broccoli in the James Bond franchise), do you not have access to Google? I bet you live and work within a few miles of dozens of coin shops that can get you PAMP Suisse Gold bars. Now, MAYBE the truth is that someone tracked those particular serial numbers to that particular Gold dealer. Big, big difference and again, a BETTER story.
- 15 “ingots” with $40,000 value. The image in the article shows 5 oz bars, but the math ($40,000 / 15 = $2666.67 per bar) indicates (at yesterday’s closing spot price of Gold at $1123/oz) 2-3/8 ounce bars or maybe 74 gram bars. Neither of which are known to exist, correct me if I’m wrong.
4 Lessons About Buying and Storing Gold
So let’s see what we can learn from this NY Times article from Michael Wilson (NOT Barbara Broccoli’s partner I’m presuming):
- Mr. Wilson (Sorry, I have to laugh thinking of Dennis the Menace…) and his editor seem to have NO CLUE about Gold ownership and perhaps want to promote the government’s position that it’s simply a barbarous relic, and there is no need for John Q. Public to ever own any? Remember, the first step is to ostracize…
- Again… do not EVER store Gold in a bank safe deposit box. There are private vaults, though I readily admit not many in the U.S., in great part, we believe, to such ignorance about the importance of Gold ownership throughout this once-free land of the brave. You likely have to go through a value added service like our favorite, The Hard Assets Alliance – and that’s not all bad.
- Maybe we should be careful buying serial numbered Gold bars for self storage, whether private vault, midnight garden or home safe. Last thing you need is someone using the serial number to track down where you buy or sell your Gold.
- If you buy Gold or Silver from a local shop, perhaps choose a mom & pop type store that, while it probably will have video cameras, likely won’t be storing footage for a long period of time. A simple coin shop may be more interested in only potential robbery/burglary purposes that wouldn’t need to be kept more than a few days. This high security location in the Manhattan diamond district would not be my first choice to buy Gold, how about you?
Moving Forward
While shaking my head reading this article I am thankful for the knowledge we have and the opportunity we have via the internet to help others understand the best way to buy Gold, Silver and safely store those assets to protect your wealth long term.
If you want to own Gold anonymously that’s fine; just be smart about it. Re-read the lessons above. And never, ever feel like a criminal or “villain” just because you want some privacy with your financial matters or because you are wise enough to see the value of Gold ownership.
Future generations will likely be government serfs with no such privacy options, yet from what we can ascertain from the Millennial generation’s usage of social media and outright statements they make – they are OK with zero privacy and reliance on the government nanny state.
God help them, because I’m sure we won’t be here to help. Yet, we did all we could to warn them.
Hassle-Free Gold Ownership
One way to protect your wealth with precious metals in a method that, at least for now, requires ZERO government reporting (always check with your own certified tax professional) even if you store the Gold offshore is by using The Hard Assets Alliance.
Yes, your money can be tracked getting to and from them but what you buy and where you store it is NOT. Nor should there be any automatic reporting when/if you have them ship the metal to you.
This is our own personal favorite company to do business with in this space. Check them out if you are interested, they offer a free Gold starter kit (called a SmartMetals Action kit) and there are no commissioned sales people to pester you just for inquiring.
