Secure, State-of-the-Art Depository to Store Your Precious Metals
Fully Segregated Precious Metals Storage with Extraordinarily Low Fees
Money Metals customers know the importance of protecting their wealth from inflation and financial turmoil. Building a precious metals holding is one vital step. Securing that holding is quite another.
Storing your precious metals in the ultra-secure Money Metals Depository is inexpensive and affordable. Yet the service we offer is first-class. Store with us, and you'll find convenience, security, and savings on shipping and insurance –- at a bargain price.
Start Securely Storing Your Precious Metals:
Money Metals recommends customers store at least some of their holding in a location under their direct personal control. There is no substitute for having immediate, anytime access to your precious metals. But for many, storage at home can be impractical:
- Home storage can be stressful for some investors.
- By law, precious metals IRAs must utilize third-party storage facilities.
- Large quantities of precious metals are heavy and may be difficult to handle; for example, a $50,000 holding in precious metals weighs over 200 pounds.
- Very large holdings always demand extra attention to security and insurance coverage.
Contents
- Fully Segregated Precious Metals Storage with Extraordinarily Low Fees
- Storing at Money Metals Depository Offers Some Very Real Advantages
- Setting Up a Secure, Low-Cost Storage Account Could Not Be Easier...
- There Is a Right Way and a Wrong Way to Do Storage. Money Metals does it THE RIGHT WAY
- Be Sure, Have a Look for Yourself
- Store Your Precious Metals in Home Safes
Storing at Money Metals Depository Offers Some Very Real Advantages
- State-of-the-Art Physical Security
- Money Metals' depository building is custom-built to our specifications, using armored in thick steel and hardened concrete.
- Money Metals Depository uses only top-of-the-line UL Class 3 vaults
- Our facility uses 24-hour monitoring and the latest security protocols.
- Located in low-crime Eagle, Idaho, with the county sheriff's office located on the second floor.
- Fully Insured and Outside the Rickety Financial System
- Money Metals Depository contents are fully insured by Lloyd's of London.
- All metals stored in your account are fully segregated and are never commingled or rehypothecated — and cannot be used as collateral for a loan by anyone but you.
- Depository holdings are totally independent and removed from any bank, Wall Street, and Washington, DC.
- Zero Cost to Ship and Insure
- You'll never pay a dime to ship and insure when you order from Money Metals Exchange and elect to store your metal with Money Metals Depository.
- Nor is there any cost to ship and insure when you sell precious metals stored with Money Metals Depository to Money Metals Exchange.
- Access to Cash Loans If Desired
- If you need access to cash but would rather not sell your precious metals, you can apply for a cash loan secured by your holdings in the depository. (This option is limited to larger holdings.) Learn more here.
Third-party storage also makes sense when it comes to precious metals IRAs. IRS rules require the assets in retirement accounts be held by a third party, but that does not mean investors are stuck with paper. You can buy physical precious metals bullion and precious metals bullion inside your IRA and utilize segregated storage at Money Metals Depository.
Setting Up a Secure, Low-Cost Storage Account Could Not Be Easier...
You may be surprised to find that our white-glove secure storage services are available for fees that usually lower than those charged by a precious metals ETF such as SLV or GLD -– but without the same counterparty risks and other dangers.
It takes just a couple of minutes to set up your account. Then simply make a purchase and choose delivery to your depository account. Or ship precious metals you already own to be stored securely by us. That's it. We'll safeguard and fully insure your valuable holding in our state-of-the-art maximum security vault.
There Is a Right Way and a Wrong Way to Do Storage. Money Metals does it THE RIGHT WAY
Our state-of-the-art depository in Idaho offers the highest level of protection for precious metals storage available in America and at the lowest cost. (If you prefer, we can even offer storage in certain other facilities we've vetted, including offshore in the Cayman Islands.)
Unfortunately, some depositories play risky games with their customers' assets — pooled accounts, unallocated storage, and "re-hypothecation" of customer holdings (which has been called "the Next Major Investment Disaster"). Money Metals has never done these things, and never will; we do storage the right way — fully segregated, fully insured, never commingled, and never misused as collateral. Your metal is held in true bailment and remains your sole property at all times. For more information and disclosures, please visit this page.
Be Sure, Have a Look for Yourself
We guarantee customer holdings are properly secured in our vault. In fact, customers can arrange a look for themselves — right from home. On request, we will schedule a viewing of your holding by video. Your sealed holding will be placed on a table, unpacked, displayed, and then resealed — ready to return to storage. For non-IRA storage accounts, this viewing is available at absolutely no charge (limit once per year).
Our online tools and account notification procedures give you complete transparency into your holdings at all times.
You can easily add precious metals to your account, sell your holdings, ship in, or ship out right from our secure portal. And holdings at Money Metals Depository are audited internally each week and by a third party each year, all at no extra cost to you..
If you need storage for any portion of your metals stockpile, take advantage of the most secure and convenient option available anywhere. Just call us at 1-800-800-1865 to get started.
Start Securely Storing Your Precious Metals:
You own it. Do you know how to store precious metals securely?
Secure precious metals storage is important given that thefts of valuables are on the increase – and will continue to be as precious metals prices rise and the economy sinks. According to the FBI, $1.6 billion worth of precious metals and jewelry was stolen in 2010, a 51% increase from 2005. Less than 5% of stolen precious metals are ever recovered and returned to the rightful owners.
There are a number of viable options for storing precious metals at home, or bullion storage programs at third-party precious metals storage facilities. Home safes, decoy safes, ground burial, safe-deposit boxes, and secure bullion storage facilities can all be good places where to store precious metals bullions.
Each of these options has their own advantages and disadvantages that should be considered. It's not so much a question of which one to employ. It's more a question of which ones to employ in order to balance the primary concern of safeguarding your precious metals from theft with the secondary concern of ensuring at least some of your metals are readily accessible at all times.
Store Your Precious Metals in Home Safes
It is prudent to diversify your storage locations and methods to manage your exposure to the risks of theft, fraud, and disaster. By so doing, in the unlikely event that one of your precious metals stashes disappears entirely, you'll have backup holdings to prevent a total loss of your precious metals wealth.
We do suggest, as a starting point, that you have at least some sizable emergency cache at home for ease of access. A good home safe is a logical place where to store precious metals (at least some of your holdings). It will help keep children, friends, housekeepers, plumbers, and other individuals you invite in your home honest.
It won't necessarily deter a committed burglar, though, especially if the safe isn't bolted down or otherwise physically attached to your home's architecture or an immovable object. A burglar armed with a few tools that can easily be obtained at a hardware store will be able to break open most safes. So the most secure home safe may actually be the one that is best concealed.
Use In-Home Hiding Spots
A safe may not even be necessary if you give some thought to how to hide precious metals or how to hide precious metals in your house using a few clever hiding spots – attic, beneath floorboards, behind a furnace or refrigerator, etc. An effective hiding place can even be one that's in plain sight. A burglar is going to look for jewelry boxes and safes and ignore most of what's right before his eyes.
A diversion safe that resembles a common household product such as a can of shaving cream will easily fool most thieves, provided it looks genuine and is in an appropriate location (a can of Barbasol doubling as a safe belongs in a bathroom next to shampoo, lotion, etc.; not by itself in a bedroom closet). You can buy diversion safes through Brickhouse Security (800-654-7966), Amazon.com, and possibly a specialty store in your area.
However, you don't even need to buy a diversion safe when you can easily create one out of containers you already have in your house. Boxes, canisters, cans, or bottles with reclosable lids – anything that is able to hold valuable contents without drawing attention to the fact could potentially be used.
Bury Your Precious Metals
To make a portion of your precious metals stash virtually impossible to be discovered by burglars, bury it deep in the ground. This method provides your precious metals greater protection from theft, but at the cost of limiting their accessibility. In the end, this is a long-term precious metals storage solution only!
Bury your precious metals cache near visible landmarks that will still be around years from now. Be sure to place your precious metals in a sturdy, water-tight container. Let one highly trusted person know of the whereabouts of your cache in case your time on Earth ends before you can retrieve it.
Have a cover story ready for nosey neighbors who may observe your digging. This points up the general importance of not talking about your precious metals ownership with anyone who isn't very, very close to you. We all enjoy talking about things that we value personally, financially, ideologically. Avoid the temptation to talk about your own physical precious metals holdings.
Can You Keep Precious Metals in a Safe Deposit Box?
Entrusting some portion of your precious metals to a third-party's vault offers both security and hassle-free convenience. Bank safe-deposit boxes are a popular choice and are more secure from actual theft than most home-storage methods.
Safe-deposit boxes have a number of drawbacks, though, including limited accessibility (banking hours only) and privacy concerns. You may be observed by bank staff or other customers taking real precious metals bars or bullion precious metals coins into or out of your box.
Can the Bank Open Your Safe Deposit Box?
Banks are notoriously bad about protecting customers' privacy, in large part because FinCEN and Patriot Act rules require all financial institutions to keep records on their customers. Safe-deposit box contents can be seized by the IRS, other government agencies, or, in rare cases, private creditors.
The contents of safe-deposit boxes are not covered by FDIC or other insurance. You can add riders to your homeowner's policy to cover precious metals stored in your home, typically at an annual cost of around 1% of their value. On the downside, reporting your bullion to an insurance company also entails a privacy trade-off.
Secure Bullion Storage Facilities
For large holdings, a bullion vaulting service such as Money Metals Depository may make sense – provided it's in allocated or segregated storage.
When evaluating vaulting companies, there are several considerations:
- Does the company offer a fully segregated storage type of account? Meaning, will your metal be completely separate from the vault's other clients?
- Will your precious metals be protected from an insurance coverage standpoint in the event of a large-scale heist or some sort of natural disaster?
- Does the company have competitive pricing?
- Where is the vaulting company located? Storing your metal outside the United States may also be a possibility through certain companies who offer global vaulting options.
Money Metals Depository offers fully segregated storage, fully insured, at very competitive rates - all from our brand new, state of the art facility in Idaho. Please call 1-800-800-1865 for more information.
Start Securely Storing Your Precious Metals:
Minimums usually apply and storage rates will vary, but generally speaking vaulting companies will charge anywhere from 50 to 80 basis points to store your physical precious metals on an annual basis in a fully segregated account (although IRA storage programs can be much less). For instance, a typical yearly vaulting fee on $100,000 worth of precious metals not held in an IRA would be somewhere between $500 ($100,000 x 0.005) to $800 ($100,000 x 0.008).
We strongly suggest avoiding ETFs, pooled accounts, or "warehouse receipts" issued by brokerages, banks, or other financial institutions. Remember MF Global? Investors who held warehouse receipts for precious metals and investment precious metals bars within MF Global accounts had their assets frozen and pooled together with those of other customers of the failed firm and were told they'd get back about 72 cents on the dollar. This horrifying situation is likely to happen more and more to investors who do not know how to store precious metals safely.
Make no mistake – investing in precious metals using proxies and paper instruments is more dangerous than ever in the current environment.
The Bottom Line: Be in Control of Your Wealth
Follow these guidelines, diversify your storage methods, and your risk of losing your bullion will be very small. Hold your wealth in mere dollars, and your risk of losing purchasing power over time will be approximately 100% – with an outside chance of a sudden catastrophic loss due to a collapse of a financial institution or an orchestrated currency devaluation!
Bullion isn't risk-free – no asset is – but unlike financial assets that you have no direct control over, you can take full control over your own precious metals bullion coins, bars, and rounds. That's the bottom line!