Why You Should Absolutely Never Sell Your Gold Jewelry & Buy Much More

[Editor's Note: The following post is by TDV Editor-in-Chief, Jeff Berwick]

Physical gold investors hear it all of the time: there is not only intrinsic value in gold, but also intrinsic disadvantages. 

These disadvantages are no doubt why bitcoin has had such sucess internationally.  

The most noted of these problems is the simple fact that gold is not easily transportable. Not only does physical gold (and even more so silver) come with actual physical weight, but it also comes with a whole host of worldwide regulation when it comes from moving gold from one slave-ship (read: nation-state) to another. 

Imagine packing up one million dollars of gold to take aboard a plane.

In fact, twice in December 2013 an airplane cleaning crew found stashes of gold hidden in plane bathrooms. A maintenance crew found two duffle bags full of 24 gold bars, weighing 53 pounds and worth $1.2 million, stashed in a bathroom compartment. Before that, $1.9 million was found by a cleaning crew: 280 gold bars. Likely, the individuals carrying the gold got nervous, potentially thinking the authorities were onto them.  

Would have been much smarter to wear the wealth, like this guy:

Now, that guy didn’t do it to get out of dodge, he did it to get girls. (seriously) Not sure if it worked for him.

TDV Head Researcher Justin O’Connell recounted to me a story recently involving him, $100,000 in silver and the US Border Patrol. Justin has worked around precious metals for numerous years, and a couple years ago, on his way from Phoenix, Az. to San Diego, Ca., he was stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint. 

They brought Justin into secondary, and began to search his car. They didn’t find anything and were about to let him go when they popped the trunk. Some of the agents flipped. Others thought the discovery was cool and began asking Justin questions. The agents had discovered $100,000 in silver. They promptly put Justin in cuffs under suspicion of having stolen the merchandise. (Justin’s old car was a 1996 Toyota Corolla, so his handling of that much wealth was a red flag)

Justin produced his business card and the Border Patrol agents made some phone calls, likely to Phoenix police to find if any silver had been reported stolen. None had. One agent accused Justin of breaking US law by travelling between US states with that much money. Justin assured him this was not the case, as he had Googled this before making the trip. 

After an hour or so, they let him go. 

What’s likely is, if Justin had been wearing $100k in jewelry, he would have escaped handcuffs.  He’d look like Mr. T, but he would have likely gone unmolested. 

Even if you have access to a private jet, which you don’t have to go through TSA to board, there are still plenty of risks taking a million dollar, heavy and clanky package even just down the road. And just try to get insurance!

To boot, you can’t take more than a certain value out of any given country at a time because that makes governments and banks nervous. I am always cautious, and bring much less than the legal amount to steer clear of any “confusion.” 

Ever tried shipping gold internationally? This is one of the most arduous processes known to man. Want to ship to a particular country? Well, first things first, you best make sure that it is even legal. You cannot ship gold and/or silver to many countries. Canada doesn’t accept gold shipments. UK doesn’t accept gold or silver shipments. Australia has similar restrictions. 

After you’ve confirmed that, indeed, you can ship gold there, then you’ll have to figure out how much the duties and taxes will be. 

Sound daunting? You’re not done. 

Once you’ve done all that, you’ll have to fill out a customs declaration form (which is NOT required, by the way, but good luck getting away with not filling it out). Once shipped, you’ll then have to worry about your package being “randomly inspected.”  (Editor’s Note: We have written Getting Your Gold Out Of Dodge, a complete manual on internationalizing your precious metals for this reason)

Granted, most of the general public is truly clueless when it comes to the history of money. For many of them, gold and silver are either relics or jewelry. They won’t recognize a “Monster Box” of Gold Eagles, but if they see the coins themselves, then you best believe they’ll notice.  And, if they’re working for any sort of goon-squad, they might just take it, which happens all the time. 

What Are Your Options? 

Be sure you are diversified. It is smart to buy physical gold and silver in various forms. Always be spot sensitive, but diversify within these metals (coins, bars, jewelry, antiques, art). 

The easiest way to diversify away from what might be a “bullion” heavy gold and silver portfolio is to buy jewelry. But, be careful what kind of jewelry. 

While gold jewelry has been tradition for thousands of years, it has been tradition in the USSA to make cheap gold products, often at 14k (58.5% pure gold content). Even then, a lof of these products fall under the true 14k mark. (some even fall shy of 10k!)

That’s why we encourage people to look into 24k gold. 

Wearable Gold

Owings Metal has created a near perfect product: wearable 24k gold. But, Owings Metals doesn’t just make jewelry, they make jewelry with key characteristics of money: not only is it wearable, but it is also easy to trade and to verify. 

I know this product very well, because I was involved in the process. If you want to learn more, and take the appropriate steps to protect your loved ones by buying one of these beautiful necklaces, click here. 

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, we would like to encourage all of you to buy 24k gold jewelry for your loved ones (January 16th is the last day to order to receive by Valentine’s Day). It is really the perfect gift. And with gold prices this low, the time could not be better. In just the last few days, the gold price has increased more than $30, possibly having bottomed out after a multi-year correction. 

Is it done correcting? While I don’t worry about the “daily noise” in the gold market, I do know one thing: It will undoubtedly go back to $1,920 (its Fall 2011 price), and much higher!