Your gold is an investment worth looking after. The Royal Mint’s Collector’s Guide will advise you on the best practices to help you maintain its lustre and quality, ensuring that your investment remains pristine for years to come.
Storing gold at home comes with many considerations, and after learning how to clean, store and insure, you can preserve your precious metal and enjoy your investment with ease.
An Introduction to Cleaning Gold
Typically, due to its quality, gold doesn’t require cleaning (as it doesn’t tend to rust or tarnish), meaning that maintaining its brightness and lustre requires little effort. However, depending on how long you retain and store your gold, the visual appearance may need some attention, and thoughts on how to prolong such a quality may start to run through your mind.
The Royal Mint’s precious metals experts have teamed together to advise you on the best practices for retaining gold at a premium standard. When cleaning your gold, we suggest that you use a soft but damp microfibre cloth; this helps to remove the dirt and grime that has collected over time and is a gentle and harmless alternative. Please avoid using cleaning products as these can damage your precious investment.
Storing Your Gold at Home
Storing your gold at home has many benefits, including 24/7 access to your assets. However, storing gold at home means proper care and maintenance needs to be adhered to in order to help you maintain its quality and visual appeal.
Many people refrain from storing gold at home, as multiple factors must be considered before proceeding. These environmental factors and risks can include theft and damage; however, to reduce the risk, precautions can be taken, which include:
• Gold should never be stored with silver or any other alloy as this enhances the risk of oxidisation, which can get transferred onto your gold, ultimately tarnishing and devaluing it.
• Before you commit to storing gold at home you must ensure that your at-home storage can hold gold separate from your additional precious metal investments in an airtight capsule – protecting it from harmful chemicals and environmental factors.
• The environmental factors to consider include protecting your gold against humidity, fluctuating temperatures, dampness and other harmful corrosives.
• We advise that you securely store your precious metals in either a safe or secure deposit box that can be locked and stored away, reducing the risk of theft and damage.
• Remember, your contents insurance may not cover your investment portfolio. You may need to consider specific insurance for your investments when storing at home.
Insuring Your Gold
Protecting your gold investment doesn’t stop at storing and cleaning; it also requires insuring your valuable assets from theft and damage. You might think your typical home and contents cover includes the cost of replacing your investments; however, this typically isn’t the case. Most homeowners’ insurance policies cover low-cost household items that are classed as ‘easily replaceable’, meaning the need for a separate insurance cover is essential when considering storing your assets at home.
Whatever the precious metal, storing your investment at home can carry a massive burden unless stored and insured correctly. However, this responsibility can be managed with The Royal Mint’s on-site storage facility – The Vault®. Our facility provides you with a secure, state-of-the-art storage solution at one of the most secure sites in the United Kingdom, giving you reassurance knowing that your investment is entirely safe, offering a double lock, with an insurance cover for up to £50,000. Visit our dedicated secure storage page to find out more.
Protect Your Gold Investment
Store and protect your gold investment with absolute peace of mind, with the help and advice of our precious metals experts at The Royal Mint.
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