Safely Store Gold BullionHow to Buy Gold Bullion - Buy Gold Bullion for a Safe and Secure Future

Where Can I Safely Store Gold?

After you decide to purchase gold for an investment, you then need to decide where to safely store gold.

The decision about where you want to safely store your gold will determine the type of company you deal with in your gold purchase and sales.

There are two basic ways to safely store gold.

Take Physical Delivery of Your Gold

This means that once you make a purchase, your gold bullion is shipped directly to you. You will take physically delivery of your gold.

This puts the responsibility for the safekeeping of your gold squared on your shoulders. You need to keep it both safe and available in case you need it.

You typically have two choices when you take physical deliver of your gold. You can store your gold in your home or you can store it in a bank vault in a safety deposit box. Both options have advantages and disadvantages.

If you choose to keep your gold at home, you may want to purchase a fireproof safe. Keeping more than a few ounces of gold in your dresser drawer may not be wise. After all, a thief or a fire could “liquidate” your assets in a flash.

During a burglary your safe becomes one of the most tempting targets. So, consider a safe that is too heavy to easily cart off (perhaps a hundred pounds or more) and a safe that can be bolted to the floor. And, make sure you take the time to actually bolt it to the floor.

The heavier the safe, the more steel it contains and the harder it will be to open with readily available tools. Also, make sure your safe will withstand the heat of a fire. Safes tested by Underwriter Laboratories Inc. will advertise the length of time contents will remain undamaged from a fire. For example, the “UL 2-Hour” seal indicates a high level of heat protection.

And, if you place your safe in a basement, you may also want to make sure your safe protects its contents from water damage.

The other popular option safely storing gold you take possession of is a safety deposit box.

You can typically rent a safety deposit box at a local financial institution like a bank or credit union.

Safety deposit boxes come in a variety of sizes and costs ranging from around $25 to $125 or more a year. You have access to your safety deposit box during normal business hours and can access your box in a private area so nobody else has knowledge of its contents but you.

While your safety deposit box is stored in the vault, its contents are not insured. To insure the contents of your safety deposit box you can normally add a rider to your homeowner’s insurance policy.

Store Your Gold in Professional Vaults

A number of major gold bullion dealers will allow you to buy and sell gold that is stored in their vaults. Major trading centers in New York, London or Zurich provide this capability for you. Often, your gold is stored in a Swiss vault.

Instead of buying gold in increments of an ounce, you can buy less than an ounce, often as low as a gram. This is often idea for the beginning investor. For those with larger sums to invest, gold bars of larger sizes are readily available.

There will typically be an annual charge for storage. These charges are often around 0.1% of your holding per month. Usually, this charge includes insurance on your holdings. So, holdings of $100,000 worth of gold would incur a $100 per month charge, or $1200 per year.

Another thing to consider when storing your gold with major bullion dealers is whether your account will be a segregated account or a pooled with other accounts.

With segregated accounts, your gold is kept separate from the gold of other owners. Your assets may have a number shelf area that identified the gold located there as your gold. Just as you have a separate account number, so your gold sits on a shelf or in a box identified by your account number.

If your account is pooled with other accounts, then the total amount of gold owned by those pooled investors is stored together. A pooled account can give you a greater range of options in purchasing and selling your gold, since your holdings are not in increments of bars. You transaction can be for fractions of a bar, rather than for individual bars you personally own.

On the other hand, some people believe that a pooled account opens up the opportunity for fraud by the holders of your gold. they can claim that they hold sufficient gold to satisfy all their customers. And, this may appears true as they are able to handle day-to-day transactions. But, a very thorough auditing may be required to verify that they have all the gold they claim.