When it comes to investing in precious metals, a majority of the battle after you make a purchase is where to store your bullion. Storing it in a closet or drawer may seem like a good idea, but for large-scale investors these are not very viable storage options. For those investors out there who have run out of room or would simply like to safeguard their investment at the highest level, storage in a depository may be the best option.
A depository does not make sense for every investor as some investors simply do not have enough gold that paying for space to be set aside in a depository would be worth it. However some other investors have so much gold that they store at home that they are not only putting their investment at risk, but themselves as well.
For those of you who are on the fence about whether you should keep your gold at home or in a depository, hopefully the next few sections will clarify any questions or concerns that you may have. You can never be too safe with your investment in gold bullion.
Why it Makes Sense
Storing gold makes most sense for those investors that have ounces and ounces of the yellow metal in their immediate possession. Because gold is so easy to transport and store your original thinking may have been that keeping your gold at home made the most sense because it was under your watchful eye. But as an investment grows it becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of in your house, especially if you aren’t currently residing in a mansion.
On top of the fact that you may simply not have enough room in your residence to hold your gold investment, the risk of theft is at its highest so long as you are watching over your gold. Especially for those people that do not own at home safes, the risk of theft you are facing is quite high. You may not think that anyone you know may want to rob you or your gold investment, but it is not worth risking either.
By storing your gold in a safe and secure depository you are more or less guaranteeing yourself that your investment is safe and will remain safe. Do not get this section wrong either, you do not have to be a large scale investor to store your bullion in a depository, there are depositories willing to cater to investors of all shapes and sizes.
Safety of Your Bullion
In the last section we more or less told you all about why it is not a smart, safe idea to keep your gold investment at home under your own roof. In this section we will instead focus on the benefits you will derive from storing your bullion in a depository.
First and foremost, storing gold at a depository insures you that your gold will never be tampered with and has almost a 0% chance of being stolen. Depositories are most often large vaults, much like you would find at a bank, and I don’t know about you but I cannot recall the last time a vault has been broken into. In a lot of cases the depository which you keep your gold at will provide you with a picture of how and where your gold is stored. This gives you, the owner of the metal, a more real-life depiction of where your gold is.
Types of Storage
In most cases a depository will offer you two types of storage options, segregated and non-segregated. Segregated means that your gold will be stored separately from the rest of the gold located at the depository. Non-segregated means that your gold will be stored in the general population of gold in the depository. As you would expect, it will cost you more to store your gold in a segregated depository than it costs to store in a non-segregated one.
Realistically, there is no difference between segregated and non-segregated other than the peace of mind you get knowing that your gold is safe and sound on its own. More often than not you will find that non-segregated storage costs about half as much as segregated storage so if you do not have the extra money to spend, I cannot find an instance where segregated storage makes any more sense than non-segregated.
Costs
After learning all that you have up to this point, your final question may be as to the actual cost of storing gold in a depository. The fact of the matter is that there really is no set price for storing in a depository, but how most depositories charge is by making you pay a percentage of the total value of the gold you are depositing.
An example of this is that for non-segregated storage, you will be asked to pay .8% of the total value of the gold you are depositing. So if you are depositing $10,000 worth of gold, you will be expected to pay about $80 for a whole year.
In addition to storage fees, most depositories get you by charging you a fee simply to reclaim your gold. Whether you physically pick up your gold and take it home or get it shipped to your residence, you will be charged a fee. This may not make sense to you but these places need to make a profit some way.
Depositories
While finding a depository may seem easy, finding the right one for you may not be so simple. This is why you are advised to shop around before settling on a place to store your gold. You never know, one place may keep your gold for a much lower price than another depository. A few of the most popular depositories in the US are as follows (in no particular order):
Any of the aforementioned sites will give you the best storage facilities for your bullion at the most competitive prices around. Regardless you should still compare them side by side before actually picking one as your precious metals storage outlet.