"She had depended on the gold coins for her retirement"

Maybe I am wrong and mine is only 22" long. I never measured it, but maybe that is the standard size. I do know I can get 5 boxes wide and 5 boxes tall, (with a touch extra space) on coin boxes for 2x2's, so I believe I am darn close on the 12x12. The weight, with about 1000 ounces of junk silver, some gold, and about 12 coin boxes I am pretty darn sure is close to the 100 pounds. Its getting close to the point I either need another box or help to remove this one. My main regret is that I didn't rent the other large box they had open when I rented this one. They are all gone now, and they only have a couple half sized ones left. I might have to rent that one soon just to make sure I will have more room, since lord knows I will never stop buying both coins and PM.

 

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What I am about to say will not be a very well-liked statement: I have always contended that if I don't have access to something freely, it is not truly mine.

That is exactly why I have such an issue with SDBs. However, the thought of having my bullion hoard and numismatic collection stolen is truly horrifying.

What do you guys think of large fire-resistant gun safes??

 

If installed correctly and even then there is some risk that if someone knows about it its still stealable. Safes are not very safe without layers of other potection like alarms and 24 hour monitoring. I actually chose my bank for the SDB based upon the fact its next door to the police station. Just bonus protection in my eyes.

So, a properly installed safe is much better than no safe, but IMHO not as secure as a good SDB. Just my opinion though.

 

That's a shame that the lady was ripped off in the first place and I hope she gets it all back. With that said, you have to have precautions in place. A SDB would have prevented that ripoff and would have been the normal thing to do. Loose lips sink ships, she should have shut her mouth about having that much of a hoard in her home. Now, unfortunately she will be kicking herself on the butt for the rest of her life.

 

I keep all of my good stuff in a SDB. I do have a safe here with low value things in it and sometimes stuff I bought that will go to the SDB after I have photographed it. I bought the Hugh Wood insurance through the ANA - cheap, $55 a year for $10,000 coverage.

I have two small SDB's - $120 a year for both. The risk of loss there is low, but I like to spread it, so two boxes.

Don't forget to put desiccant in your safe and SDB and to check it and bake it when it needs regeneration. I found tins of "Orange indicating" on eBay and Amazon - I have one in each SDB, and two in the larger safe.

 

Horrible shame that someone would do this to an old women. I hope they catch this (these?) criminals quickly........

 

I get it. Possession is 9/10th of the law.

I feel the same way, but I did a bit of a risk analysis on my bullion and I figured that it was more prudent to store it in a SDB than at home in my safe. Primarily because they have a much better physical and electronic security than I can afford.

For example, they have a leased line alarm system. In other words, their alarm system maintains a constant connection with the security service. If that signal is interrupted, the police are informed and they respond in force. (I've seen them responding to an ATM alarm before, and you'd think there was a mass shooting in progress.)

Most home alarm systems dial a security service when there is an event, because a leased line is cost prohibitive. When the police respond to a home alarm, it is typically not the same level of response a bank or ATM would receive.

The differences in physical security are similar. I kept my bullion in my gun safe for a while. Then I bought a used AMSEC safe, but it was not a TL rated safe. My next safe will be at least a TL30. But even then, I'll store the bulk of my PM in my SDB.

One thing to consider when storing bullion in a gun safe is the exposure to chemicals that will accelerate toning. (Assuming of course that you also store guns in your gun safe)

 

I totally agree with this, no one is saying a SDB is totally risk free, but it is a much better coice than at home. It is all about going with the odds, and keeping your bullion at home is sort of like betting the hard 8 in craps. It may work out for you, but the odds are just not there.

Mike

 

As an aside, many pm people have made this argument about "a sdb is not safe". However, when challenged, I have never seen hard proof where someone had their sdb box confiscated unless they were involved in some sort of money laundering/hiding assets from a court kind of thing. Yes, sdb have been opened by the government with a search warrant from a court if the court had judged a person was illegally hiding assets. Yes, a sdb has been stolen by thieves. So no, they are not perfectly safe, but much safer than anything in a home for most people. I guess if someone was perfectly secret about it, had very, very good concealed places to hide it, and literally told NOONE about it, that is safer than a sdb. I just read stories like the one posted above all of the time. I mean, a LOT. I am sure most or all of these people who got their pm robbed honestly believed it was safe the way they were doing it. They all made a fatal mistake of letting someone know.

But, in the end, how do you want to live? I am sure someone could figure out who the heck I am from my posts here. That is ok, I do not want to live in private. I love talking about my hobby and helping people. The reason I can sleep at night is I know my coins and pm is not at risk, since its not in my home. When was the last time you heard about someone's sdb being stolen from them? Really? Yes, some famous bank robberies in the past have happened, but they are very rare. When was the last time you heard about one? As to the government taking it, they didn't in 1933 when they had the gold recall. Every story I have ever heard about "the government took my sdb" always, if you dig deep enough, have a non-innocent party involved. Either they weren't reporting income to the IRS, they weren't paying child support, or some other crime they were trying to get away with by using their sdb as a safe storage area of their ill gotten gains. The only other type of story I have seen was someone not paying sdb rent for a number of years and the sdb being closed and the coins being sent to the state and auctioned off. Well, that is the law, you need to pay the rent.

The one question I would have for those who advocate complete privacy and hiding them in your home would be this; What happens if someothing happens to you? If you literally told no one, then nobody, (including your heirs), either know its there or where it is. Is that what you want? Myself, I have a sdb where my wife, (and children when old enough), knows where it is. If something happens to me, they can go to the bank and get it. Inside, there is a list of where to send the coins and bullion to be sold. I want my heirs to get my assets, and make it as easy as possible for them. I don't want them to run around tearing my house apart looking for buried treasure.

 

If I had 250k in gold that was just for bullion purposes, I'd hide it inside a wall. And have a heavy steel safe for them to find with nothing inside but the fickled finger of fate award-which you can probably make now with 3D printing.

 

There could be problems with this also, there have been many case of well meaning mother-in-laws, etc. etc that were "only helping out" and cleaning up that have thrown out very valuable stuff.

 

This would have a problems with fire and other natural disasters. In my opinion, not even close to being as secure in a SDB.


Also, if you are talking about booby-trapping your decoy safe, uh, you may not like the law, but you will go to jail for that if someone gets hurt. In addition lets just just hope it would not be a family member who may be trying to access it after your passing

 

More often than not it is a family member who has stolen coins, jewelry or other valuables from people's homes.

An elderly man told me that he had a small coin collection tucked away in a closet. The usual stuff penny folders, nickel folders and some for silver coins he did not specify. One day he got them out and all of the folders for the silver coins were empty. I asked him who might have known they were in that closet. He said the only one who knew was his son, his wife had already passed away years earlier but, he wouldn't have taken the coins he is a millionaire. Then one day he told me that I was right it could only have been his son since no other person had ever been alone in the house and his house had never been burglarized.

 

I suppose that depends on how you feel about your family.

 

Thanks for the law lecture mike but the fickled finger of fate award is not a booby trap. //// I agree that SDBs are secure. If the day ever comes when the goon squads seal them off and confiscate the gold in them I'm sure they'll thank everyone for their diligence. ////I'm not passing anytime soon or passing anything along except methane. "You'll come now, ya hear."

 

...and we will thank you for the decades of scaring innocent people with something that has never happened in the history of our country, and something that even if they did would not pay off 1% of the Federal debt. Yeah, any minute now we should be fearing such an action, but ignore the hundreds, (if not thousands) of people having coins stolen from them in their homes every year.

That makes sense.

Just as a historical note, this exact same warning could have had a 1975 date on it, since it was the exact same crud that was being said back then. Probably before, but I was only 7 and it was the first time I personally had heard it. So, if you followed their advice in 1975, you would have had 40 years of safety in a sdb, versus risking the hundreds of thousands of robberies in this country every year, not to mention underhanded relatives, possibly taking your pm.

Everyone make up their own minds, please, but I am just trying to put in perspective the two options.

Edit: Btw, sorry, no offense meant Longnine. Maybe you will be right someday and they will get all gestapo like and either steal en mass all sdb's across the country, or force inspections of all sdb's and confiscate all pm for some reason. I am simply reacting to the fact it has never happened, even when gold was recalled, and even if they did it there would be no net change to our government spending. For that reason I just seriously doubt it. But, you, like me, are entitled to each other's opinions.

 

That is a sad story if the son took them.