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Are Collectible Coins The Best Way To Own Gold After All?

One of the most common pieces of advice in the gold-bug world is to get as much metal as possible for your money, which means buying bullion rather than rare (i.e., numismatic or collectible) coins. The latter weren’t confiscated in 1934, but — so goes this line of thinking — that’s not an issue this time around because gold isn’t legal tender and therefore doesn’t have to be confiscated for the government to devalue the currency.

But today differs from 1934 in another way that might offset bullion’s advantage over collectibles: Governments around the world, after decades of overspending and overborrowing, are desperate for tax revenues and are actively trying to uncover untapped stores of wealth. That’s why the rules governing Americans’ offshore accounts, for instance, keep getting stricter. And why France and several other countries have lowered the allowable size of cash transactions.

How likely is it that domestically-owned gold and silver bullion will be caught in this net? Very likely, says economic forecaster Martin Armstrong in a recent blog post:

Money Laundering & Gold

I have warned that if you are going to buy gold, make sure it is common date $20, $10, or $5 gold coins since bullion is going to become a dirty word. As of April 1, 2015, Chase Bank in the U.S. is advising its clients who rent safe deposit boxes that they may not use a safe deposit box to store cash or gold.

According to their new policy, “Contents of box: You agree not to store any cash or coins other than those found to have a collectible value.”

In other words, simply storing gold bullion or cash is now considered to be money laundering as you are hiding assets from the government. They will assume it is illegal gains, even if you can prove it is cash or gold you bought after paying taxes. Welcome to the new totalitarian world of government; you are merely a custodian of the government’s total wealth and are seen as their property. You should have gold coins that are collector’s items with common dates rather than modern produced bullion coins.

If Armstrong is right, then a couple of conclusions follow:

• Home storage is more important than ever because all forms of remote storage are vulnerable to intrusive governments.

• Maybe some common gold and silver coins from the recent past that are worth a bit more than their melt value (that is, collectibles) should be added to the typical bullion stack.

For background, consider these posts from DollarCollapse.com:

Where You Store It

Where You Hide It

And here’s an excerpt from The Money Bubble: What To Do Before It Pops on home storage:

“Metal in hand” is the watchword of a big part of the sound money community, with good reason. If you have it, then it can’t just disappear when a coin dealer stops returning customer phone calls or the government decides to seize bank assets. And, truth be told, a big stack of gold and/or silver coins is a very nice, reassuring thing to see, touch, and contemplate.

But here more than anywhere else in the “where to store it” discussion, the devil is in the details. Home storage of precious metals is literally a book-length subject and is a hotly-debated topic online, so when deciding whether and how to store some precious metals at home, plenty of advice is available. And good advice is necessary because the range of factors that must be considered is legion.

Besides where to hide a cache of bullion and how to package it to keep it safe from its environment, there’s the question whom to tell about it. If too few know, it may never be found. If too many (or the wrong people) know, word might get out and attract unwanted attention.

Meanwhile, each home-storage choice carries its own risks. Hide your bullion in a safe, and that’s the first place burglars will look. Bury it in the back yard, and it might be discovered by thieves with metal detectors. Keep it in a dresser drawer, and burglars might get a pleasant surprise when looking for cash or jewelry. Fail to properly insulate it, and bullion can melt or be otherwise damaged in a house fire.

But these risks are all manageable. Over the years, a number of ingenious solutions to the hiding-place question have been developed. Here are four drawn from a highly instructive article published on the Gold Silver Worlds website in early 2013:

The Freezer. “Regardless of whether you own or rent, the freezer is an indispensable appliance found virtually in all homes, apartments, etc. The accessibility and convenience of this option is excellent, as it does not require any structural modification to your living space. Food items such as turkey, chicken, ice cream containers, etc., can be carefully stuffed with your valuables, effectively fireproofing them in the process. The temperature itself will have preservative effects. Space is a limitation here, but because freezers are rarely robbery targets, they can serve as a discrete secondary storage option.”

Artificial Rocks. “Camouflaging your storage site into the local topography is a time-tested solution. Rocks typically do not draw much attention and can fit into a variety of landscapes. Artificial rocks with hollow storage cavities can be purchased online through a simple internet search. Search results will feature a wealth of shapes, sizes, and colors, ranging in capacity to accommodate a few dozen to several hundred ounces. This solution is essentially fireproof and can be extremely labor intensive in the event of theft.”

Flower Pots. “The density and weight of larger gardening pots can make them ideal for storing larger quantities of precious metals. Their bases can be altered to feature a spacious non-visible compartment within. Larger pots can weigh several hundred pounds and require skill to successfully penetrate, reducing the probability of theft. The layer of soil acts as a protective fireproof barrier. A larger base can work well for several dozen coin tubes or even bars. Remember to always waterproof your metals before storing.”

Unused Pipes. “Pipes are both abundant and distributed throughout most homes. A gas or water pipe which is no longer in use is ideal. Caps can be added to the ends of pipes to hold additional metals. Coins can easily be hidden either within a non-functional pipe or within a pipe cap you may easily purchase. Pipe storage also is a theft deterrent because of the unlikelihood that a time-constrained intruder will have time to scan your entire plumbing or gas pipelines system.”

The article’s list of possible hiding places continues through table lamp bases, backyard grills, and fake appliances. And the complete range of hiding places is limited only by one’s imagination.

18 thoughts on "Are Collectible Coins The Best Way To Own Gold After All?"

  1. Buy the cheapest gold you can because they will steal everything and anything. Bury the stuff in the ground in the middle of nowhere and not on your own property. Best a remote place that will not be disturbed that you pass by on a regular basis. Once the economic collapse comes, there will be a reversal of confiscation and another system established where your once hidden gold will re-establish your wealth.

  2. Experts can’t even agree what grade collectible coins are, never mind trying to buy food with one. People understand a krugerrand, Eagle, MapleLeaf, Panda contains one ounce of gold. Anything else is the subject of an obscure, arcane losing conversation about rarity.

  3. Looking at confiscation through the lens of American history is foolish. The government had way more respect for its citizens back then. You need to look at what has happened where totalitarian governments have confiscated gold. I’ll save you the trouble – they did not care if was collectible, and trying to hide it didn’t help much.

  4. Armstrong is full of BS & hype. He’s selling something & he has a distinct dislike of Gold which makes me very suspicious of his motives. He advocates that if you must have Gold then best to have coins! This would be the worst possible advice except to someone who can only afford a couple of ozs. Other than that you’re paying an extra 10% minimum for the privilege. In Bulk bars are by far the best option.
    All that rubbish about where to store Gold at home makes me want to puke. There is no problem about keeping Gold at home if you keep your mouth SHUT ! There are scores of hiding places around a home – loose big mouths are the problem. If married ONLY 2 persons need to know & NOBODY else. Children & other family members should know nothing about Gold held in possession. Oh almost forgot but also not a good idea to have an armoured truck or even the local delivery service bring the gold to your doorstep.

  5. At this point I’ll just be glad to see that gold and silver are vindicated. I can’t wait for PMs to “suddenly” be considered the only valuable and reliable forms of money (again). Theft is theft, and if things play out where paper is – well – paper, digits are ephemeral, and PMs are coveted then your neighbors and house keepers may be more of a threat than the government. If TSHTF then it might be best to lay low and not try to use your metals to purchase things. Save them as stores of wealth until the dust settles. Hold emergency cash just in case it’s still worth something.

  6. Anything by Martin Armstrong has a taint about it. If it comes to a full on confiscation, it will not matter of the gold coin is a bullion gold Eagle or a $20 gold coin, it is still gold, and will be confiscated.

    1. Bingo. My cousin lived in Eastern Europe when the communists took power and confiscated all of the gold. They come around for a “chat” and ask people which of the neighbors and family is holding. Today it would be even easier. The NSA knows everyone who commented on this blog is probably holding. And metal detectors probably go through flower pots pretty easy. Yes Dan, they’ll take your guns too, over your dead body is right. One little drone. When it comes to fight or flight, the smart money is on flight! Remember that when the 2nd amendment was written, people still lined up in a field and shot muskets at each other.

      1. People don’t understand me when I say “Don’t die for dirt”. Staying to fight an impossible war is suicide. Fighting over an arbitrary piece of land is stupid. In WWII when Europe was slaughtering 50 million of their own, people were going to the opera and out to dinner in Argentina. There is always somewhere safe and peaceful. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Never mind being canon fodder. Millions of immigrants fleeing war settled in America. When war comes to America, it is time to move on. Don’t copy the Jews in Germany.

        1. The big question is, what country will take our sorry butts. A second passport will be worth 100x times more than gold. And southerners fleeing to Mexico will run against Trump’s wall, it works just as good in both directions lol.

  7. Don’t get me going on Martin Armstrong and his “computer” that he claims can time all the world’s markets. This guy lost hundreds of millions for Japanese investors and was imprisoned for 11 years. He said he just needed time for the markets to go his way to recover the lost money but authorities closed him down. How many Ponzi schemers have said the same thing? It’s true we was abused by the court system but he really did
    cause a huge financial mess in Japan. The investors were eventually made whole by the bank also involved in these bad dealings. Japan didn’t require mark to market accounting so losses could be transferred between financial entities at cost rather than at market prices and without the investors being given an honest accounting.

    His so called Pi based timing method is as nutty as Fibonacci Numbers and other worthless techniques with zero proven ability to work in financial markets. Not
    one of these number systems has any demonstrated historical proof of success – not one. If the proof of the pudding is in the eating then why did he lose so much money for his investors?

    Now he’s going to be selling subscriptions in September to what I consider a timing
    system doomed to failure. By the way, I have degrees in Finance and Computer Science and know software bullshit when I hear it.

    CitiBank deciding to disallow gold and cash in safe deposit boxes is not a directive of the government. It’s Citi trying to avoid lawsuit claims. There are no federal regulations preventing you from storing gold, cash or auntie’s vibrator in a bank box. It’s a bank rule, not federal. Furthermore, collectible coins come with huge markups. If you need to
    sell your gold outside the country you won’t get the collectible price from bullion buyers. Buy government issued bullion coins and stay safe.

    1. Great comments, Tony!

      I can’t believe the number of disciples Marty has, especially for what Benoit Mandelbrot calls the “fool’s gold” of the markets: long-term predictions. I am an empiricist in that I don’t care if someone uses the phases of the moon or any other technique to make their investments. But I will investigate the crap out of what they say to see if there is any there there. And unfortunately, I found Marty was using the old soothsayer’s trick of ambiguity and multiple contradictory predictions so that he could whip out what he said later and say, “I told you so.” Functionally, his predictions are useless. He shouldn’t feel bad, though, as all the financial media, 99% of tip sheets, and most financial web sites fall into the same category.

      I think the funniest thing he does is when he lambastes others for stealing his ideas. Kind of reminds me of a rambling homeless guy I saw on Youtube who claimed Netflix stole his idea for movies on computers.

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