So You Own Gold Coins, Where Do You Put Them?
I was reading a short quote from Richard Russell over at King World News that happened to mention where to store your gold coins.
So I perked my ears up, so to speak, wouldn’t you?
Richard Russell is greatly admired in the world of investment newsletters and prognostication, though the past number of years I’m not sure he has had too much insight other than to prepare for bad times.
(Bad news sells, unfortunately.)
Mr. Russell has advocated for a long time putting your assets into tangibles like gold and silver and the other day he addressed where to store gold coins and silver coins.
The 4 suggestions that he had were:
- A good steel home safe
- Bury them in the ground in a plastic container (editor: sealed PVC pipe)
- Buy the coins through an outfit you can trust such as a Canadian or Swiss bank
- Put in a bank vault
Well, Richard Russell and John Mauldin might trust a bank vault (safe deposit box is what I presume they are referring to) but that doesn’t seem like such a great idea to me and many others. Maybe a few coins (gold, silver is too heavy and voluminous), maybe for short periods of time, but not long term. Someone at the bank will figure out what you have (especially if they read your newsletter!) and those boxes aren’t that secure.
Don’t forget about the possibility of gold confiscation, however remote and the times when safe deposit boxes could only be opened in the presence of an IRS officer.
An Outfit You Can Trust
Trust is a funny thing when it comes to one’s money. Who do you know in Switzerland or Canada banking? Any Swiss banking issues in the news the last couple of years to tear down that trust just a smidgen?
Private, for profit companies who want to stay in business by keeping their customers happy seem a better bet to us.
As for Switzerland we do trust the folks at Global Gold, though they are mostly for high net worth individuals only.
In the United States, you might consider Hard Assets Alliance (our review page) and choose from any number of secure vaults worldwide. These are people who will pick up the phone and talk to you when you call; that helps to start the process of trusting someone.
