Compare · A Home Safe
Us vs. a Home Safe
A good safe, properly bolted down, is a reasonable answer for a modest holding and costs nothing after you buy it. Two details decide whether it stays reasonable as the holding grows: what your policy actually covers, and what a house fire does to metal.
Come and see the vault before you move anything. No account relationship is required to visit.
Side by side
| Category | Us | A Home Safe |
|---|---|---|
| Ongoing cost | A storage fee | None after purchase. They win here |
| Access | By appointment | Immediate, any hour. They win here |
| Counterparty risk | Us, and we publish what we do not do | None whatsoever. They win here |
| Who knows you hold metal | Us, and the people you name | Only who you tell |
| Homeowner policy coverage of bullion | Coverage arranged separately, in writing | Commonly a low sub-limit. Read yours |
| Fire | 9R vault, two 14,000-pound doors | Safe fire ratings are set for paper, not metal |
| Burglary with the owner present | You are not where the metal is | You are standing next to it |
| Independent record of what you hold | Signed inventory, serials photographed | Whatever you wrote down yourself |
Every row marked “win here” is a real advantage of the alternative. A table that gives the other side nothing is not a comparison, and anyone reading carefully will notice.
The fair case
What a home safe genuinely does better
A home safe has one advantage nothing else on this page can match: there is no counterparty at all. No company can fail, change its terms, be acquired, or decide it no longer offers the service. Access is immediate at any hour without an appointment or a phone call. There is no monthly fee, so the cost curve is a single purchase rather than a subscription that compounds over twenty years. And nobody outside your household needs to know the holding exists. For a modest quantity held by someone who values immediacy and independence over everything else, that is a coherent and defensible choice.
The limit
Where the gap is
Two specifics are worth knowing before you rely on it. Homeowner and renter policies commonly carry a low sub-limit for money, bullion and coin — far below the limit for the property generally, and often low enough to surprise people who assumed their full cover applied. Read your own policy or ask your broker; scheduling the items separately may be possible. The second is fire. Safe fire ratings are specified to keep paper documents intact, which means holding the interior below roughly 350°F. Gold melts at 1,064°C and silver at 962°C, and a structure fire can exceed both. Metal that has melted and re-solidified into the base of a safe is still metal, but it is no longer a recognised bar with a serial number, and it will need assaying before anyone prices it properly.
Our view
The honest verdict
For a holding you could replace without it changing your year, buy a decent safe, bolt it into structure rather than a floorboard, and tell as few people as possible. That is the right answer and it costs you nothing per month. Reconsider when the value passes what your policy will actually pay on bullion, when the weight of accumulated silver makes the safe a liability rather than a solution, or when you notice the only record of what you own is a note in your own handwriting.
Common questions
- Does homeowners insurance cover gold in a home safe?
- Policies commonly carry a low sub-limit for money, bullion and coin, well below the limit for property generally. Read your own policy or ask your broker; scheduling the items separately may be possible.
- Will a fire-rated safe protect gold bars?
- Fire ratings are specified to keep paper intact, holding the interior below roughly 350°F. Gold melts at 1,064°C and silver at 962°C, and a structure fire can exceed both.
- When is a home safe the right answer?
- When the holding is modest enough that losing it would not change your year, and you value immediate access and zero counterparty risk. Bolt it into structure, and tell as few people as possible.
Other comparisons
A Large Depository
Delaware Depository, Brink’s Global Services and the state-chartered depositories do this at a scale we do not attempt. For a large part of the market they are the correct answer, and one requirement settles the question outright.
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A Bank Safe Deposit Box
A bank box is cheap, familiar and for a lot of holdings entirely sufficient. We rent boxes too, and we will point you at one rather than sell you something larger. But two things about bank boxes surprise almost everyone.
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Storage Where You Bought It
Buy the metal and it never ships — it appears in an account and can be sold in a click. The convenience is real and the liquidity is genuinely better than ours. The question is what happens when your seller, your price-setter and your custodian are the same company.
Read more →
What we store
Gold Bullion
Gold is the easiest metal to store and the one where the storage arrangement matters most, because a large value occupies very little space and is completely fungible once it leaves your sight.
Read more →
Bulk Silver
Silver is where storage economics become real. The same value in silver occupies roughly seventy times the volume of gold, and volume is what a vault charges for.
Read more →
Sovereign Coins
Coins introduce something bars do not: condition is part of the value, so how they are handled and what they sit in matters as much as where they sit.
Read more →
Tell us what needs to move.
What, from where, and roughly when. You do not need an inventory to start the conversation, and if the job belongs with an armored carrier we will say so on the call.