Silver Storage

[benjamen]

First time post, so here we go!

When I first got into precious metals, I picked silver for my first purchases. As the collection grew, storage becomes an issue. The traditional idea of storing it in a safe deposit box only works for a while. Your standard 3x5 box only holds ~300 ounces. For those that are serious silver stackers, what are the common ways of storing your holdings? :shrug:

For simple concentration of wealth I am starting to see the appeal of gold and platinum.


Follow up:
I do not consider an ETF as a viable option.

 

[DSAbug]

Silver is really hard to store without a real safe. However, there are about a million different ways you can hide your silver so that it's accessible. Just don't hide it all in the same place and definitely don't forget where you hide it.

When I lived in Bend, I had a crawl space under my home that wasn't accessible from the outside. It made it an ideal location for me to store things safely when I knew i'd be going out of town for extended periods. At that point, my safe was acting as a decoy. IMO.. A safe in general only makes things difficult for a quick snatch and grab. If you are every going to be out of town for a period, you are better off being creative.

 

[pmbug]

Hi benjamen, welcome to the forum. :wave:

I would rather trust a home safe or hiding place than a safety deposit box at the bank. I personally believe the risk of bank holidays and frozen access to safety deposit boxes is higher than the risk of home burglary.

I tagged/grouped some previous discussions about storage issues for easy reference:

http://www.pmbug.com/forum/tags/storage/

 

[benjamen]

As I understand it, the basic categories of storage are:
1) Personal
2) Bank
3) Bullion Vault
4) ETF

Unfortunately, all of these methods do have their own risks associated. In my opinion ETF's are junk. Both Bank and Bullion vault storage are subject to 3rd parties risk. Personal storage can be costly (good safes can be expensive) and dangerous.

 

[pmbug]

BTW, I posted some info on improving home security (in general) here:

http://www.pmbug.com/forum/f13/burglars-steal-large-silver-gold-stash-361/#post2586

 

[dontdeBasemebro]

I've heard that hiding your silver beneath a large body of water is quite secure.

Splitting up the stash in a variety of locations, some purposely more visible than others, with a variety of security measures seems like the best route to me. Once the location is known it is only an issue of time and tools to get it. It is hard to steal something that you don't know exists.

 

[escobar]

I have both in safe deposit boxes and BV. I want to eventually get them out of bank boxes and into a credit union box or something. Over time I will work on it.

I personally do not feel comfortable having the pms in a house. I travel a lot and am abroad most of the year. I think chances of robbery are much higher than bank holiday.

I also do not feel comfortable with it all in one place so I have BV as well. Yes its not in hand but I do believe its just like having it in a vault overseas.

The next best thing would be to fly to singapore or HK or Switzerland and open up your own box there and store them there.

Technically anything that is not in hand has some type of counterparty risk. Since I am not gonna live based on where my PM's are you have to decide what is best for you.

 

[Renewed Investor]

I have several SDB with several banks as well as a good home safe. It's always best to diversify so that in the event of crisis or robbery you do not lose it all. If you are gonna keep any of your metals in the house though then invest in a gun too.

 

[Island_Dweller]

Hi Benjamen (good thing your name isn't Ben or I'd get suspicious about a certain Fed chairman infiltrating our boards)

I agree with Derek on the crawlspace and I didn't read all of the links that PMBug posted so I'll just throw out another idea. I also think RI and dontdebasemebro is correct with spreading out your stash.

If you look around, you can find old safes (try ebay, craigslist, etc). I'm talking about old (and seriously heavy) safes. The trouble with them is that you're going to need help getting it in the garage or house (which means people know it exists). The good thing is: if it takes 4 people to get in in unloaded, it'll take more than that to get it out once you load it up.

I've seen them sell for just a few hundred dollars.

Good luck and welcome aboard.

 

[ancona]

Benjamin,
Please be aware that many of us who stack silver have suffered tragic accidents while transporting it from one place to another. For instance, my silver is somewhere on the bottom of Lake Okeechobee, after having been inadvertently placed there when my boat capsized. Don't worry though, the wife and I are able swimmers and we all had life jackets on [thank God!] so we made it to shore just fine. Boating accidents account for something approaching 85% of all lost silver if you can believe it! Anyhow, be careful when transporting silver by boat, because like me, you too may have to announce to us here at PMBug that your silver suffered a tragic demise and now resides in Davey Jones's Locker.

I'm just saying..................

 

[pmbug]

FWIW:

...
According to in-house memos now circulating, the DHS has issued orders to banks across America which announce to them that "under the Patriot Act" the DHS has the absolute right to seize, without any warrant whatsoever, any and all customer bank accounts, to make "periodic and unannounced" visits to any bank to open and inspect the contents of "selected safe deposit boxes."

Further, the DHS "shall, at the discretion of the agent supervising the search, remove, photograph or seize as evidence" any of the following items "bar gold, gold coins, firearms of any kind unless manufactured prior to 1878, documents such as passports or foreign bank account records, pornography or any material that, in the opinion of the agent, shall be deemed of to be of a contraband nature."

DHS memos also state that banks are informed that any bank employee, on any level, that releases "improper" "classified DHS Security information" to any member of the public, to include the customers whose boxes have been clandestinely opened and inspected and "any other party, to include members of the media" and further "that the posting of any such information on the internet will be grounds for the immediate termination of the said employee or employees and their prosecution under the Patriot Act." Safety deposit box holders and depositors are not given advanced notice when failed banks shut their doors.
...

http://democraticwatchdog.blogspot.com/2011/02/dhs-department-of-homeland-stealing.html

 

[escobar]

Thx for posting. Man this stuff really makes me nervous. I need to find a better place. I just don't feel comfortable with it at a house. I need to investigate other avenues. I read in Singapore they have these private vaults you can walk into and are open like 20 hrs a day and can walk in an check it anytime. I wish there were more places like that in the us.

Wish I did not have to worry so much about what the govt will do. So much for land of the free.

If anyone has any suggestions perhaps you can post them. Seems like a private storage facility with easy access seems the best.

 

[DCFusor]

A brave lady at my bank told me all about the Patriot act stuff - and there's more to it than what PMBug just quoted. Just moving money around inside the same bank can get a report generated on you.

Boy, if I was that worried about my home - I think I'd move. Is the issue just that you don't think you can get the stuff stashed in there without anyone else knowing about it? There's a lotta room inside most home partition walls - depends on how much you need. Outlet boxes near floor level can be easily removed and junk put in the wall under them for smaller amounts. Pretty safe if no one else knows about it.

As said above, it's hard to steal what you don't know about. A safe makes a great decoy, too, should you be forced to open it, it can have just a little bit in there. It would be easy to convince most crooks that your wealth was mostly a sham all along - it's how they think anyway. And at least here, there have been some very serious injuries happen to people stealing safes - it takes a whole new class of skill and tools that most don't have to move one without getting hurt.

Just being really heavy even works for ATM machines left in the open in bad neighborhoods. There are some truly funny videos out there of rednecks pulling their own trucks in half trying to yank one free with a chain, for example.

If it's really enough that theres a worry about well off, high skill safe crackers getting involved (eg just a matter of tools and time), don't be such a piker - hire a guard - he can even just call the cops if he doesn't want to fight himself, and he need not know where/how the shiny is really stored to be a backup security system.

Bruce Schneieir has a lot of stuff on this. Sure, burgler alarms don't do it all, ever. They fail some, they go off falsely some, which is why you have another layer = the guard, and he has more layers - the police - defense in depth. Security goes way up when you add even mediocre human judgement to the equation and the persistence and ability to notice "hinky' that only humans have. And again, your guard doesn't need to know what, where, how much, he's guarding to perform the function of "home security". He just needs to be credible on a phone call to the cops, which no automated system can really do.

 

[benjamen]

I am starting to see the appeal of concentration of wealth for ease of storage.

For example:
Given you want to covert $500,000 to silver, you can currently purchase ~15,200 ounces. If done in gold, you only recieve ~300 ounces. It is much harder to hide/store 15k ounces than 300 ounces.

 

[mike]

Hide it in your doors, assuming you have hollow doors in your house.

 

[Jetstream]

Hey Ben - in the interests of helping out a like-minded guy on the value of PM's, I'd be willing to store it for you. ;-)

 

[Jetstream]

Hide it in your doors, assuming you have hollow doors in your house.

Try and find a place to store PM's in your house that is safe, almost never thought of, and will not be picked up by a metal detector (should a thief have one).
That is what you want to strive for.

 

[pmbug]

* bump *

Greeks cannot withdraw cash left in safe deposit boxes at Greek banks as long as capital restrictions remain in place, a deputy finance minister told Greek television on Sunday.

Greece's government shut banks and imposed capital controls a week ago to prevent the country's banks from collapsing under the weight of mass withdrawals.

Deputy Finance Minister Nadia Valavani told Alpha TV that, as part of those measures, the government and banks had agreed at the time that people would also not be allowed to withdraw cash from safe deposit boxes.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/05/eurozone-greece-cash-idUSA8N0XO00920150705