When you buy bullion and coins, you’re buying them primarily for their value rather than their gorgeous appearance. Their appearance doesn’t really affect their value, either, but excessive damage can reduce their selling price, especially when it comes to coins, so you have to look after your stash.
Try not to touch it
Of course, when your order of coins or ingots from this website arrives, you’ll be sorely tempted to hold them and gaze at them for a while. This is OK, as long as you take some very sensible precautions. Gold is surprisingly soft for a metal, so a fall onto a hard floor will actually damage it. To be on the safe side, put a soft towel or cloth on the area you’ll be handling your gold over.
If you can, wear soft, clean cotton gloves or at least wash your hands before picking up your bullion to remove oil and small grit particles, which can damage the surface. If you have coins, then pick them up by the edges not the faces.
Don’t clean it
If you clean your bullion, you can easily damage it, especially if it’s coins because you could end up damaging a mint finish. As gold doesn’t corrode or even tarnish all you need to do is to store it away safely somewhere clean, dry and airtight.
Don’t flash it about
The main thing that’ll keep your gold safe from thieves is not telling anyone you’ve got it – apart from immediate family, that is. Once you’ve told the people who need to know, it can go away safely.
Keeping your gold in a safe
If you keep your gold in a safe upon your property then you’ll always have access to it, but you’ll also need to make the necessary modifications and take extra precautions. Talk to your insurer about whether keeping bullion on your property affects your insurance premiums (in an upward way…). Your current household insurance might not cover it at all so you may need to buy an extra policy.
Other things to consider
If you decide to install a safe in your home then it needs to be big enough to house all your gold without being free-standing, so a wall or floor safe is your best bet.
It should also be somewhere that’s not obvious, so no neon flashing arrows, big X-marks on your floor or a rubbish oil painting on the wall! This location also needs to be dry and structurally secure – no rotting wooden beams or crumbly old bricks to give way in a few years’ time.
There are some third-party options that are secure
You should only investigate third-party storage options once you’ve actually taken possession of your gold. Ignore any dealers who say they’ll look after your bullion without you ever taking hold of it – you may not actually own it! Ideal third-party storage is with something like a bank or another specialist storage provider, as long as it has great insurance and Fort Knox levels of security.