Poll Results: Your Favourite Way To Store Bullion

We have recently introduced a range of new polls for our clients and readers to take part in on our site. We’d like to hear your opinions and advice given that we get thousands of visits coming to our site each month, from hundreds of countries. So many of you are deeply interested in gold bullion and the gold market generally; we thought there must be some collective wisdom to share here.

Our first poll finished last week having run for two weeks, with the question being: "Where is the safest place to store your gold?" Respondents had the choice of 4 answers: "at home," "with a bank," "independent vault" and "other."

The results are in, and there are some noteworthy findings. The most popular answers were "at home," taking just over 50% of the vote, and "independent vault" which received a little under 40% of the vote. There were some interesting submissions for "other," which accounted for less than 6% of the poll – a few answered that it was "a secret" and others even preferred to keep gold on their person at all times.

The results came from an interesting range and diversity of people and places, with hundreds of responses from 28 different countries. Some of the countries our respondents came from we had not previously heard of, although we can now safely show you where the Northern Mariana Islands are on the world map! (Near Guam, east of the Philippines). The bulk of our participants came from the Western nations of the USA, UK, Canada and Australia.

Let’s look a little deeper at what your votes told us.

Focused advice on gold investing
The two most popular responses provided almost 90% of the results, indicating some very focused advice from our readers. Your answers indicated a clear preference for holding your gold investment outside of the banking system and financial counterparties, with only 4.7% of respondents believing the safest place to store their gold is ‘with a bank’.

Investors who hold their gold bullion investment at home generally do so because they believe it to be the safest storage method giving them the highest degree of control. Ultimately this all comes down to personal preference, but investors new to gold should bear a few things in mind before they buy gold and take personal custody of it.

When you take your gold bullion out of the professional market’s "chain of integrity," at that point, it loses its good delivery status. Essentially the bullion has lost its proven purity, and will need to be reassayed before it will be accepted back into the market again. This means that your resale value is reduced, and the potentially costly process of reassaying your bullion can eat into your returns. If you own legal tender coins this is less of a concern for you, although the issue below might still apply.

Once you have your gold at home, you need to keep it safe and possibly insure it. Some might prefer to keep it "under the bed" or discretely hidden somewhere, whilst others might foot further costs and install a home vault. Even after doing this, you will need to insure your gold – we’ve all heard of horror stories affecting people’s bullion investments in their home.

Although there are costs and hassle associated with storing gold at home, some investors do prefer this option where they feel they have the most control. Check out our Education Centre to learn how to use The Real Asset Company as the most efficient way to buy gold bullion and take delivery of gold bars.

Gold bullion in independent vaults
The other stand out advice from our readers is that investors should also think of using an independent vault to hold their gold bullion investment. What our readers seem to be saying here is that the vaulting system used by the professional bullion markets has a range of advantages that gold investors should consider.

Vault providers like Via Mat, Brinks and Malca Amit are recognised by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), and manage vaults for the major exchanges like the NYSE and COMEX. These vault providers operate independently of the banking system, and do not trade precious metals.

One advantage of using these recognised vaults is that your investment can remain within the market’s "chain of integrity" (as discussed above).

Another benefit is potentially greater security and insurance protection, as these recognised vault providers operate some of the safest vaults in the world. No matter how well we might set up a home vault, it is very difficult to match the professional market infrastructure. These vault providers are insured by the likes of Lloyds of London, at incredibly low cost thanks to their superb safety records.

Independent vaulting does mean that your gold bullion is one step removed from you, but the chain of integrity has evolved over time to serve the needs of professional gold investors. Use our Education Centre to learn how you store bullion in these independent vaults when using our platform to buy gold online.

The Real Asset Company has also been working with Malca Amit to pioneer new ways to invest in gold online. You can find full details in our Education Centre, and read how we can help you open your own personal vault. We think this unique service combines the benefits of keeping gold at home, and the best practices of the professional market vaults.