Best Places to Hide Gold at Home

The Spotlight

10 minutes read

Jan 18, 2022

a fireproof safe to store physical gold bars and coins at home

You prefer keeping your physical gold at home but don’t know what could be the best place to hide it? Here are some practical tips to help you choose the safest hiding spot.

In our previous SPOTLIGHT, we talked about the safest place to store your gold and listed the advantages and disadvantages of each storage method to help you make your choice.

And while we recommend you store your precious metals in a secure vault, we know that some gold investors prefer to keep them at home. However, there are several things you have to be aware of if you choose home storage.

Let’s look at some of the most popular hiding places you most likely have in your house to see if they’re safe enough to store your precious metals.

How can you keep gold at home safe?

Very often, your personal situation can open up all sorts of creative places for storing your precious metals.

ways to keep your physical gold safe at home

How you keep your gold and silver protected will depend on the type of metals you own, your personal needs, and where you live.

If you live in an apartment or a remote area, some storage methods may not be available to you. Or you might simply want to always keep your physical gold close at hand.

But, before exploring all the hidden spots in and around your home, you should consider a few safety measures if you want to keep your gold and silver savings well-protected.

Protect your gold from damage

Due to gold’s malleability and silver’s tendency to tarnish, it’s recommended to keep your precious metals in dry and fire-proof places.

Compared with third-party storage (a.k.a safe deposit boxes and secure vaults), precious metals are likely to be more exposed to damage if stored uncarefully at home. Just imagine the horror of your silver bars getting damaged in the rain when kept unprotected in your garage! 😰

That’s why you should consider putting your gold and silver products in a waterproof container and avoid storing them anywhere other than their protective casings, especially if you’re planning to sell them. Any change to the condition of your bars and coins could significantly impact their price

Keep it discreet

When storing gold at home, tell as few people as possible where your precious metals are located.

It can be easy to slip a word or two about it in a casual conversation, but, to avoid any issues, pay attention that you don’t reveal too much information to people you don’t trust.

a stop sign for posting pictures of your gold bars and coins on social media

As tempting as it may be, refrain from posting too many revealing pictures or videos of your at-home precious metals holdings on social media.📸 Sure, your Facebook or Instagram friends might love it, but it’s a common mistake that can attract unwanted attention or even worse, unwanted visitors.

As you’ve probably noticed, stories of gold thefts have made headlines: one story is about £40,000 worth of gold stolen from a home in South London, while another is about a man who put his life savings into silver, only to be robbed of close to $1 million.

With so many security concerns, you must find a good place to hide your gold so no one – not even the most skilled thief – can find it.

Where to hide gold and silver at home?

There’s probably no such thing as a perfect, totally risk-free home storage solution, especially if you keep increasing your precious metals holdings.

Let’s see some of the most popular and trusted options for hiding your gold at home.

Keeping precious metals in a safe

In the past, kings would hire men to build them secure facilities to keep their gold… and then kill them. They thought it was the only way to make sure no one had any knowledge of where their precious metals were hidden.

a fireproof safe to store physical gold protected with a pin code

Today, a safe probably remains the most obvious and safest home-storage solution, although it all depends on the type of safe you opt for.

If it’s a simple fireproof document safe, some experts warn it might be completely worthless for preventing thieves from breaking into it.

But if it’s an in-floor safe, it can be easily covered up with carpet and floorboards and is almost impossible to run away with.

Therefore, it might be better to get yourself a higher-end safe the price of which usually ranges from under $1,000 to many thousands. These safes usually weigh hundreds of kilograms and can be installed underground or in a place that no one will think to look.

But the drawback of a super heavy safe is that it must be delivered… by people who now know you have a safe. Stories of homeowners being robbed not long after installing a safe are quite common.

Using hollow spaces to hide your gold

You’ve probably heard the famous story about the mysterious Yamashita gold treasure that allegedly got into the hands of Ferdinand Marcos. The ruthless Philippine dictator was rumored to have hidden part of this treasure inside the walls of his home. And guess what? The treasure hasn’t been found to this day.

Like Marcos, some precious metals investors, who prefer home storage, choose to hide their gold savings in the many hollow spaces of their homes.

What hollow spaces?

Well, take a minute to look around your house, and you will discover that it is filled with ingenious hiding spots:

  • False or dropped ceilings: if you have some of those, they’re a quick and easy way to hide your gold right above your head and out of reach.
  • Drywalls: if you’re planning to install drywall, or if you have removable panels, the extra space behind drywall can make for a good hiding spot. Just make sure you remember which wall you used. It might seem like a no-brainer, but forgetting where you hid your gold is more common than you might think.
a man removing the radiator to hide his gold bars in inside the wall
  • Behind electric radiators: some radiators have extra space between them and the wall, which can make for a good secret hiding spot for your metals. And if someone tries using a metal detector, the metal from your radiator will keep your gold or silver well-protected.
  • Behind large appliances: it’s unlikely (although not impossible) that burglars will spend time moving your fridge, washing machine, or stove around while trying to find things to steal. So keeping your gold well hidden behind them could be a smart option.

Keep you gold buried in the backyard

A little midnight gardening, anyone?

a treasure box used to hide physical gold buried in the ground

If you have a garden, you can bury your precious metals in your backyard. But keep in mind that some criminals are using metal detectors during home invasions.

Depending on soil conditions, a metal detector can easily find metals buried close to the surface, so make sure you place them deeper than 1,5 meters. Some experts suggest burying a can above your gold to mislead thieves with metal detectors.

Also, think about planting something on top of your hiding place to remember where your gold is buried. There’s a real-life story of how a great-great-grandmother hid $1 million worth of gold somewhere in her backyard and how her grandchildren couldn’t find them years later. Even with an excavator.

Put your silver in the freezer

Yes, you read it right. Your freezer, stuffed with turkey, chicken, and bags of peas, can serve as a storage option. The idea is that freezers rarely are robbery targets and their cold temperatures will have a preservative effect on your precious metals.

a freezer could be a good hiding place for your gold and silver bars

But beware of that cute neighbor kid who might end up accidentally pocketing some of your gold Napoleon coins while reaching for ice cream.🍦

Pipes, gardening pots, fake rocks…

If you don’t have enough space to install a bulky safe and want to avoid the hustle of destroying your walls, you can camouflage your gold hiding spot with fake rocks. If there are already plenty of rocks in your yard, the fake one is unlikely to draw much attention.

a creamy white gardening pot with physical silver and gold bars buried inside

But if rocks aren’t exactly your thing, you can use large planting pots to hide your precious metals. The idea is that some pots weigh hundreds of kilograms, making them hard to move around (unless they were smashed).

Finally, there are pipes. A gas or water pipe which is no longer used can be a good place to hide coins. It is unlikely that a time-constrained thief will search your entire plumbing or gas pipeline system.

Of course, the list of hiding places doesn’t end with pipes. You can also consider chair and sofa paddings, air conditioning, a hollow book… You choose.

What’s the bottom line?

As practice shows, while it might be convenient to always have your gold within reach, protecting your precious metals from bad weather and robbers can be a challenge.

a wall safe to hide physical gold and silver covered with a picture frame

A higher-end safe might be the most secure place to store your precious metals savings. It can be installed underground or in a secret place in your house, and is harder to break into, unlike simple fireproof document safes.

If you don’t have enough space in your apartment to install a safe but still want to keep your gold at home, think about using the hollow spaces (drywalls, false ceilings, etc.) in your house as hiding spots.

Another option is to bury your metals in the backyard, but don’t forget to mark the hiding place by planting a tree or a bush on top of it, and bury them deeper than 1,5 meters to foil metal detectors.

If neither of these options works for you, some advise hiding your gold and silver in your freezer behind some bags of peas.🙃❄️

And finally, avoid blabbing around about your precious metals collection and don’t post too much information on social media. Because, if you want to keep your gold savings at home, the fewer people know about them, the better.

But if you don’t feel safe using one of these storage methods, we always recommend opting for secure and insured vault storage.

GOLD AVENUE offers the best solution on the market that includes free insured storage in one of our secure vaults where your precious metals will be protected from damage, and available for delivery or resale at any time and with 0% commission.

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