Home safe, bank box, or branch custody?
Three ways to keep bullion safe, each trading convenience against security in a different direction.
Home storage
Keeping gold at home costs nothing beyond the safe itself and gives you immediate access. For a small holding, that is often the sensible answer.
The risks are the obvious ones. A safe must be properly bolted down or it is simply a box a thief carries away. Household insurance frequently caps or excludes precious metals unless they are declared and specifically covered, so read the policy rather than assuming. And the more people who know what is in the house, the weaker every other precaution becomes.
A bank safe deposit box
A box at a bank moves the physical risk to an institution with a vault, cameras and controlled access. Availability and annual fees vary by bank and branch, so it is worth asking at more than one.
The trade-off is access. You can only reach your metal during banking hours, which matters if you ever need to sell quickly. Note also that the contents of a box are typically not insured by the bank by default; the box secures the item, it does not indemnify you for it.
Custody with the dealer
Some buyers prefer to leave metal in professional custody, where it is stored, insured and easy to sell back without transporting anything.
The questions to ask are always the same, and a serious provider will answer all of them in writing: is my metal allocated specifically to me or pooled with other customers, who insures it and for how much, what does storage cost per year, and how quickly can I take physical possession if I ask.
Practical habits regardless of where it sits
Keep the certificate with the bar. Photograph every serial number and store those photographs somewhere separate from the metal. Tell exactly one trusted person where things are and how to reach them.
Split a large holding across more than one location if you can. It removes the single point of failure that turns a bad day into a total loss.