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Monday, December 3, 2012

Gold and Silver in your Preps?




Hello Fernando,
I found your book on the Internet and plan on buying it this weekend.  Can you tell me where to store gold and silver if there was to be a collapse in my country?
Thanks,
Kristen

Hi Kirsten, the best way to store precious metals during times of both civil unrest and times when you may need to access your precious metals fast is keeping them at home in a small, hidden safe. You may have to grab it quickly one day to bug out or use it frequently for payments during tough times. Some people will just hide it well or burry it. If you do that then make sure you remember where. Lots of houses have money or jewelry somewhere that was at one time hidden so as to keep it safe, only to be lost because the owners forgot about it or just hid it too well. Because of this, I believe a small safe hidden under the floor or behind a removable dry wall panel is a better idea.

Stack-On PDS-500 Drawer Safe with Electronic Lock

There’s cases in which people held hostage by home invaders have been tortured into revealing every bit of hidden cash in the house. Lets just hope none of us ever has to go through that.
Dear Ferfal,
Discovered your blog a couple weeks ago. Fascinating reading. We have been to Argentina several times- first in 1995 & last in 2007. Not a fan of BA or any big city, but we enjoy steam trains & rode the Patagonian Express 5 times Jacobacci to Esquel. Liked Esquel but being there in a hotel is not like living in a country.
Sad to hear what is happening to Argentina. We were in Jacobacci Nov 2007 the night Mrs K was elected. Big political rally & we thought it best to stay away.
Our question is now that Argentina does not allow its citizens to own gold or foreign currency, what about silver? 
Regards,
Barbara & Steve

Hi guys, yes as of a few weeks ago its just no longer possible to buy gold and silver through the legal channels. After the ban on foreign currency, most of all targeting the UsD, people turned to gold and silver as protection from inflation. At first there was a limit on how much you could buy, 100gr. a day, then they downright banned precious metals entirely. The Argentine government doesn’t like the word “ban”, so they are calling it a “suspension” for now. Either way, you cant buy it.
Hello,
Is it worth it to buy silver and or gold now?
Were people able to sell their silver or gold for the new currency if there was one after the Argentine crash?
I am in the u.s. I just want to be prepared.
Thanks,
Jose

Hi Jose, once you have your basic preps taken care of, including a small stash of cash for emergencies, yes, it does make sense. Yes, people were able to sell it afterwards, either on the official brokers or on the streets (much worse price though). Its now happening again that people tried to find shelter from the imminent default and the yearly inflation in precious metals. To avoid this, the government “suspended” the sale of precious metals.
When making up your mind between gold and silver, do keep in mind the weight issue. At first silver sounds much better, but it gets to a point where the weight of your silver is considerable. In a worst case event, you may have to leave fast with as little weight as possible, and gold in that case is much lighter per equal value.
FerFAL

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a similar Stack-On safe. It's junk. It wouldn't last five minutes against a thief. And most of the other cheap brands are no better.

Here is a good YouTube video by a locksmith showing just how easy it is to get into one of these with only simple tools.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2Wzt0vJvOI

I fully support getting a small safe for important documents, precious metals, etc., but I think getting a cheap safe is almost worse than having none at all because it gives false peace of mind.

FerFAL said...

Hi, I agree up to a point. Mostly the problem is that ANY small safe can be stolen entirelry and then opened with power tools. The trick is keeping it well concealed. As for good safes, the only way to go is big and heavy (ammo gets heavy fast, but oyu need a big safe) a safe that is bolted and will on its own require 3 people to move it will provide better protection. So you have to go either big and heavy, or small and well hidden.

A Modern Heretic said...

Fernando - I make a large proportion of my income via the stock trade.

It's not 100% on topic, but since we're talking gold (an investment), do you have any insight to share about what happens to traders in a collapse?

I don't mean so much what happens to the markets as what happens to the actual trading process - i.e. commissions go up, trading becomes less available etc.

Thanks in advance.

Don Williams said...

Re Anon at Dec 4 , 5:16 AM--

we already talked about safes a couples of months ago --see

http://ferfal.blogspot.com/2012/05/home-safe.html
including comments. The last commenter made a good point about ratings -- a local locksmith can tell you more.

There is an argument for something with 2 feet of concrete wrapped around it --but obviously you can't have that in a fifth story apartment. And in a suburban home, thieves obviously know to check the ground/basement floor. Plus if you get hit with Hurricane Sandy, your basement floods and the lock rusts then you will need to bring in a jackhammer to get lunch money. To each his own.

One thing to watch out for with small safes is the Underwriters rating for fire protection if you store paper currency --not really a concern if you store gold unless you worry about coins being melted down.

Don Williams said...

PS
One argument for going with the small, well hidden route is that there are hundreds of places in a house to store a small box --but only a few places for a big heavy safe. The one job bigger than dealing with a big heavy safe is taking a house apart to find a small , concealed one. Starting, for example, with taking all the insulation out of the attic and going on from there to removing the interior walls.

Plus the small, well hidden approach lets you split up your assets among multiple locations --instead of having all of them in a big safe that may or may not resist an attack.