How To Store Gold and Silver Safely?

Once you decide to invest in precious metals, there’s a lot of excitement ahead for you. Taking ownership of bullion bars, beautiful coins and rare collectables can make you feel like you’ve done something big for your financial health. And in every case, you have!

Once you’re done caressing your bullion, though, you’ll realize that you have to keep it somewhere. Precious metals aren’t like the other items you own. Storing gold and silver at home is a risky proposition. A relatively small child or family pet could easily walk off with a $2,000 gold bar. 

There are plenty of options available for safekeeping your investment, but if you decide to store your precious metals at home, there are only a few ways to do so. We’ll go over these storage methods in this guide — along with a few alternatives that are affordable and more secure. 

Invest in a safe for gold and silver

Whether you’ve got several bullion bars or just a few coins, keeping them in a safe is ideal. If your items are small, you may think you don’t need a safe for storing gold and silver at home. A single pound of gold could be worth tens of thousands of dollars, so there’s little doubt that a safe is an excellent investment. 

When choosing a safe, you don’t have to go super expensive. As long as it meets a few specific requirements, it should provide security for your precious metals. If you’re set on storing your gold and silver at home, look for the following features in a safe: 

• Waterproof and fireproof.
• Heavy enough that a thief can’t carry it.
• Has a UL safe rating of TL-15 or higher.
• Heavy-duty and sturdy.
• Easily concealable somewhere in your home.

Purchasing a low-quality safe just so your precious metals are out of the way can easily backfire. If a burglar sees a small, portable lockbox, the thief will walk away with it even if without knowing it contains gold or silver. And if someone can easily knock off a lock with a crowbar, a thousand-pound safe won’t do much good. 

The biggest consideration for keeping gold and silver at home in a safe is its location. You should keep it in an inconspicuous area that you can still easily access. Wall safes provide a great measure of protection, and your home may also offer the possibility of placing the safe under a floor. 

Entrust a single confidant

Investing in a safe is the single greatest thing you can do when choosing to store gold and silver in your home. What if something were to happen, though, that prevents you from getting back home? No one wants to talk about these things, but people experience accidents and injuries every day. 

If something happens to you, you want to be sure your loved ones can access your investment. Otherwise, someone who buys your home 75 years from now could find a pleasant surprise in the floorboards. So you should choose one confidant to tell about your precious metals. 

This is an important step even if you choose a home storage method other than a safe. When you have someone you trust implicitly that knows you have stored gold and silver in your home, that person can make sure it goes where you want it to. Don’t tell multiple people, though, as this increases your risk. 

Find a great hiding place

Not everyone can afford a high-quality safe. In fact, not everyone will really need one. While storing precious metals in a safe is certainly ideal, it’s hard to justify the purchase if you only have a single one-ounce silver bar or a few hundred dollars’ worth of MapleGram gold coins. 

You could easily conceal such small items around your home — especially if you don’t have many of them. It all comes down to choosing a great hiding spot and taking a few proactive measures. If you take the following steps when storing gold and silver at home, you’ll reduce your risk. 

Don’t be obvious

Cookie jars, sock drawers, imitation rocks, your freezer and even carved-out books are far too obvious. If you’ve seen it in a movie, there’s a good chance it’s not a brilliant hiding spot. You should also avoid putting items somewhere a maid, handyperson or gardener could accidentally stumble upon them. 

Choose multiple hiding spots

If someone finds where you have stored your gold and silver at home and it’s all in one spot, that’s pretty much the end of the story. Just as you would diversify when investing in stocks and bonds, take time to diversify your hiding spots. 

A few ideas

None of these hiding spot ideas come close to the security of off-site storage options. While we’re not recommending any of these directly, they may help spur your creativity to find your own hiding spot:

• Inside pet beds or kitty litter boxes.
• Hollowed-out logs stacked with other firewood.
• Inside unused water or gas pipes with caps attached to the end.
• Hollowed-out compartments in fireplaces or masonry.
• Inside curtain poles.
• False-bottom cupboard drawers.

Buried treasure

Burying precious metals at home isn’t a great idea. In fact, our recommendation is that you skip down to “Hide everything three layers deep.” If you’re committed to having buried treasure in your yard, though, you should at least do it right. 

Always abide by the following guidelines when burying gold or silver outside: 

• Use a storage container that is sturdy, waterproof, airtight, insect-proof and erosion-proof.
• Create easy instructions for finding your precious metals to provide to your confidant.
• Pick a spot that’s obvious to you but not to strangers.
• Dig when and where you’re unlikely to be seen, such as in your shed at midnight.
• Remember that most metal detectors can pick up items 4 to 8 inches deep.

If you choose to store gold and silver at home by burying it, following these steps is the safest way to do so. We can’t reiterate this enough, though: Do not bury your precious metals outside. 

Hide everything three layers deep

Regardless of whether you’re using a safe or a creative hiding spot, make sure you place your investment at least three layers deep. Most burglars want to grab things and leave quickly. Going down three layers means their job becomes even more difficult. 

For example, consider placing your items in a safe under the floorboards below a china cabinet. Plan on burying your precious metals? Consider doing so in a fenced-in area under your azalea bushes. If you can add multiple layers to your hiding spot, you’ll decrease the risk of storing gold and silver at home. 

Alternatives to storing gold and silver at home

There are many reasons to not store precious metals at your home. Even with creative hiding spots, there are clever burglars. You might also find that, no matter how smart you are, it’s possible to misplace things. And if a natural disaster occurs, even a safe might not be sufficient. 

The worst part? Your homeowner’s insurance is unlikely to cover your investment. With all these things in mind, you should at least consider these alternatives to storing gold and silver at home. 

Bank safety deposit boxes

People absolutely love safety deposit boxes, and it’s because they’re a great storage option. Unfortunately, you won’t always have access to your box. And if something happens at the bank, anything in these boxes will not typically have insurance coverage. 

Storage firms

Third-party depositories will store your gold and silver for a fee. They’re much more secure than traditional banks because their entire focus is to provide security for your items. The big issue is that these firms often provide only unallocated storage, and they aren’t specialists in precious metals. 

Gold dealer secured storage

If storing gold and silver at home is the worst possible option, then a precious metals storage facility is at the opposite end of the spectrum. These facilities specialize in storing bullion and other precious metals. They’re also typically insured and highly regulated. 

Silver Gold Bull allows its clients to use its secured precious metals storage facility for low-cost safeguarding. The facility gets audited and is allocated, segregated and outside of the banking system, with locations around the globe. You can rest comfortably knowing your gold and silver is safe.

Storing gold and silver at home? Do it safely!

More people have started investing in silver and gold than ever before. While demand for precious metals has always been high, rarely does the U.S. Mint run short on coins investors are ready to purchase. When you finally get your hands on bullion, though, knowing how to store it is paramount. 

If you’re not purchasing large reserves of precious metals, you can typically store gold and silver at home safely. After all, you need little storage to secure a roll of American Silver Eagles or a few one-gram bars of gold. Once you go all-in with investing, though, it’s time to think bigger. 

Regardless of where you are in your precious metals investing journey, Silver Gold Bull has you covered. Click here to review all our items, and if you don’t want to risk storing gold and silver at your home, check out our global storage offerings as well!