Safe Store For Gold Or Silver: Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind

With gold prices soaring and the Fed printing “Monopoly Money” like there’s no tomorrow, I’d be willing to bet that many of you already have stashed some gold coins or bullion somewhere inside your home. I mean, I sure as Hell have, because I believe in commodities, physical assets that I can touch, and I despise fiat/paper/digital money.

The dollars the Fed are printing are worthless paper/pixels and the sooner you’ll realize it, the better. Like any self respecting prepper, investing some of your hard earned dollars into gold and silver coins could be the best financial decision you’ll ever make.

To be honest, I even think that gold coins are good luck, but I may be under the influence of those Leprechaun cartoons from my childhood, if you know what I’m talking about.

Speaking about investing in small and valuable items, diamonds are even better than gold! But, they’re kind of expensive and in case you need to barter in a SHTF scenario, nothing beats gold and especially silver coins.

But investing in valuables and keeping them in a bank safe is not the best idea one can have.

Just remember the year 1933 and horror stories of the government confiscating everyone’s gold. All the gold that people had “safe” inside of their bank safety deposit boxes was confiscated by the good ol’ government. Within a matter of a couple of months, the dollars they had received for their gold was already devalued over 50 percent! That was a terrible hit for hard working Americans.

Even if the odds are slim that we’ll be facing a scenario where the government confiscates our gold again, what will you do if there’s an emergency and the bank is closed? What if you can’t get there to get your gold out? Keep reading and I will tell you how to keep your valuables safely hidden at home.

These tips and tricks are not only for gold/silver coins, but also for your jewelry, your cash or whatever you have which has a significant value.

The first thing you’ll have to remember is that you should never put all of your eggs in the same basket. In other words, mitigate the risk of theft by diversifying where you store your valuables (multiple places). You need to spread around the wealth in various hiding places, thus reducing the risks of losing it all if you get robbed.

In the worst case scenario, if you’re under the gun and have to give a criminal your gold, you could give them one of your smaller stashes and convincing him that’s all you have!

Out of Sight or Out of Mind

Thieves are clever and some of them are using high tech stuff, hence you should assume that a potential thief will use a metal detector. So, it would be a great idea to hide your valuables (gold/silver/expensive watches/stuff that would trigger a metal detector) in a location that would set of a metal detector in the first place.

You can stash your silver coins near metal silverware (like a kitchen drawer). And you can stash some valuable items inside of your car and keep some gold on your person. You never know when you’ll need them and gold is a universal medium of exchange, trust me on that, especially in a hairy situation!

Think differently when hiding your valuables! As I already told you, thieves are clever and thinking in clichés, like hiding stuff inside of your fridge or in the fireplace will play into their hands. They know all the classic hiding places and will check them first, putting a hole in your gold stash!

Obviously, it would be a good idea to put some decoys in these places, hoping that the thief will be happy with the decoys. When we’re talking decoys here, I’m talking about hiding a few hundred dollars inside of your fridge/fireplace. This trick will work especially well if you’re a smart prepper and secrecy/OPSEC is the keyword around your house; i.e. nobody knows that you’re stashing valuable items inside of your home.

You can actually spread the word that you own a safe deposit box inside of a bank and you’re only keeping little amounts of cash inside of your house. Deterrence and disinformation are essential in keeping your stash safe!

Now, let me share with you a few great ideas about how to hide precious metal inside of your home:

– Build yourself a wall safe. There are lots of ways of making a wall safe; for example using dummy electrical boxes and the like.

– Use a dummy pipe, this is the most inexpensive way to hide gold/silver coins. All you have to do is to use an old cast iron/copper pipe, seal the ends and fill it with gold/silver coins/whatever. You can place the respective pipe in the attic, under your bath tub, in the wall, basically in any place where a pipe looks inconspicuous. Just remember to move it when you’ll need a plumber!

A floor safe is an excellent way to stash large amounts of gold/silver/whatever. You’ll have to cut a hole in your home’s concrete slab to put a safe box in there in the ground (preferably filled with your valuable items) and then seal the hole back with concrete/rebar. It would be best for your OPSEC if you could do the job yourself, or get somebody that you can trust to do it, if you know what I mean.

– The old hole in the ground method still works, just remember to bury some relatively inexpensive items above your real treasure. That way, the thief will hopefully give up after he’s dug up the items that are closer to the surface, thinking that he’s found what was buried there.

– One of the best methods of hiding valuables in plain sight is to spray paint a gold/silver bar black or gray and use it as a door stop or something similar; assuming you have enough money to buy a gold or silver brick. If you’re really rich, you can use dumbbells made of silver or gold! Okay, so I’m kidding, but that would be a great idea, wouldn’t it?

– Another great spot to hide your stash is behind the insulation in the attic

– Cash can be successfully hidden inside of doors/window frames, above ceiling tiles, inside of light fixtures, in the floor or inside curtain rods; the possibilities are literally endless.

Always remember, diversify and keep your stash secret!

BPH1.1This article has been written by Chris Black for Survivopedia.

Written by

Chris Black is a born and bred survivalist. He used to work as a contractor for an intelligence service but now he is retired and living off the grid, as humanly possible. An internet addict and a gun enthusiast, a libertarian with a soft spot for the bill of rights and the Constitution, a free market idealist, he doesn't seem very well adjusted for the modern world. You can send Chris a message at editor [at] survivopedia.com.

Latest comments
  • how do you buy gold coins without uncle snoop knowing your name etc ?

    • Don’t buy a lot at one time.
      Use fiat cash.
      If Uncle Snoops did find out….Just say “Heck…I sold those loooong ago when the price kept dropping/or got higher”

      • same for artillery.

  • The best place is to put your gold and silver in something everyone should have who owns guns. Put it in a good, high quality gun safe. I put my metals inside a small Sentry Safe inside my gun safe.

    • I worry more about the gov’t than I do about thieves. It’s OK to shoot a thief, but if he gets the drop on you or takes a hostage, you will be forced to open up.

      You will not get away with shooting the G man, and he WILL pop the safe.

      Don’t forget about what the Turks did to the Armenians.

  • Last year our neighbors had a terrible home invasion by a masked gunman. Our friends had a lot of cash and gold coins in their safe, but the perp tied everyone up with duck tape, then took the wife into the bedroom where he threatened her, her husband and grandkids with death unless she opened the safe. She did so and he put the loot into a bag and then raped her. He got away and never has been located. Having a safe does not mean the bad guys can’t use every method of getting into it. What is your suggestion for such a scenario?

    • answer is to have strong doors ; lexan windows ; panic button ; weapons secreted for easy access ; maybe a safe for the burglar to find and your real safe elsewhere

  • Stashing valuables around your home (in walls, outlets, etc, etc) seems like an excellent way to lose everything you have to a fire, tornado, etc.
    Suggesting people do this seems kind of irresponsible to me.
    I can certainly understand not putting it all in a safe, but…
    How about something more like, I dunno…, bury some of it in the crawlspace of your house… or maybe under a doghouse or under a kid’s sandbox, etc.

    • good thoughts ..no location is immune from all risks …under sand box is appealing
      under floor slab in garage with work bench covering it seems fairly secure …water proof to counteract flood …not much else can damage that location..

  • to me , buying gold is to carry money value from now past the bad period when the econ / dollar crashes…when a new currency , say , the credito emerges…in place of the dollar , the gold coin would be worth x amount of creditos…or points or ameros or new dollars….[ gives new meaning to the word nubuck {a fabric } ] germany printed the new Deutsche mark after the original mark collapsed in the 1930’s in the weimar republic… becasue gvt let private banks print the money …

  • I had a hard time finding a place to buy gold, I found a place called http://www.bmfxpro.com it comes in small grams built into a plastic card delivered to your house via FedEx or they will store it for you for free. I also found that some merchants are already accepting them as payments too. I thought that was very interesting.

    • You can also purchase from ILB. Their site is independentlivingbullion.com. They sell coins, rounds and bars in 4 different precious metals and they offer buyback for any coinage you already have or that you buy from them. They won’t try to sell you overpriced “collectors” coins. Denominations come as small as 1/10 oz. so you can slowly build your stash as finances allow — that’s what I do.

  • I believe in housing gold and or silver. My question (and I have received 100 diferent answers) I want to start off with silver. I know all the silver coins and bullion and rounds and 90% silver pre-’65 coins that are available. But what is a good ‘balance to have’ or start off with? ex. 20 silver eagles or 20 silver rounds (both are .999 silver yet differ in price) Eagles are ‘known’ coins and a 1 dollar minimum face value, and yet rounds aren’t but are less expensive to buy…both still .999 silver. So, it’s like I can either buy a more expensive .999 silver coin -or not. What makes sense to use a simple guideline? And how can i mix 90% silver coins into the mix for bartering? Say, over time if I had $1000-2000 to spend? thanks

    • Hi Eli.
      I’d suggest buying pre ’65 silver dimes as starters. If things got bad you wouldn’t want to trade those 99% silver eagle and buffalos for a loaf of bread. I’ve got about $800 (silver value) in just silver dimes alone. Then another $1500 (silver value) in mixed 90% quarters, and halves. Probably another $700 (silver value) in Morgans and Peace dollars. Only after I felt comfortable with my 90% silver stacks.. I began to stack 99% silver rounds and bars and eagles/buffalos and Canadian Maples and Falcons (approx $3,500 in silver value) THEN I branched off into small gold coins (1/10th oz eagles, 1/4 oz eagles, Dos pesos, French Roosters, 1/10 oz pandas, 1/10 oz kugeraands) approx $6,000 in AU value. Small potatos to other stackers I know… but I’m proud to say I managed to stack this much despite paying off 80% of my personal debt.
      Whats the ol’ savings rule of thumb? 10%? Instead of putting 10% of your income in a savings account…use that money to buy silver or gold. If thats too agressive then I suggest 5%. Just my opinion. Good luck.

      • I’ve pretty much done the same, but I’m not buying gold as yet. I kind of figure that in the hard times that are coming commoners like you & me & others won’t be able to deal in gold. One other point, I bought at about $20 an ounce, now it is $16 more or less. That hurts! When I was buying silver, gold was going at 1800 to 2000 an ounce. Now it’s a little over 1200. Now is a very good time to buy.

        I also think the G man is artificially inflating the fiat dollar to keep from loosing to the Russians & China, who are both dumping fiat $ and buying gold & silver. Bad for us in fiat, but good for us in precious metals.

  • I’d stay away from private silver rounds. Even though they are .999 silver, they may not be readily recognizable in a crisis situation, so you will get less for it than with a silver eagle. Also, the old 0.9 silver (“junk” silver) is a known asset and will be accepted by anyone who understands silver coinage. My opinion is that silver is for buying what you need during and just after any crisis. Gold is for long-term storage of wealth for after things settle down.

    • I would like more topics on buying silver coins/rounds…..whether to get more for our buck *generic rounds, or the coins that seem to pitch a higher dollar as some collectors are buying to resale for high profits…..what would you suggest : less expensive Buffalo rounds and OPM rounds, Silver towne rounds etc…..or suggestions?

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