Keeping gold and silver at home: a practical Singapore guide

Discretion: the cheapest protection you have

A good safe helps. Fewer people knowing it exists helps more, and it costs nothing. Keep your holdings to yourself and a very small circle of family.

So no unboxing photos on social media, even with the bar blurred out. No mentioning your latest purchase over reunion dinner or in the office pantry. Contractors, cleaners and helpers passing through the flat have no reason to see where anything is kept.

How you take delivery matters too. Self-collection at our shop in Centrium Square is free, and some customers choose it simply so no parcel sits at the door or with a neighbour. If you go for courier delivery within Singapore, be home to receive it, and get rid of outer boxes and packing slips quietly rather than leaving them stacked by the rubbish chute.

Choosing a home safe and where to put it

A small cash box, or a hotel-style safe sitting loose in a wardrobe, can simply be picked up and carried out. Look for something heavy enough to be awkward, and fix it to the floor or a solid wall. Bolting it down often makes more difference than the brand on the door.

Read the specification sheet for the fire rating and the lock. Keypad locks are convenient, but keep spare batteries and find out how the override works before you need it. With a key lock, think about where the key lives. A key in the bedside drawer next to the safe rather defeats the point.

Placement is a compromise. The master bedroom wardrobe is the first place anyone looks, so a less obvious spot helps. Avoid a wall that backs onto a bathroom or kitchen, where damp builds up. And before drilling into anything in your HDB flat or condo, check what your building rules allow.

• Bolt it to the floor or a solid wall
• Check the fire rating and lock type before you buy
• Keep keys and codes away from the safe
• Stay clear of damp walls next to bathrooms and kitchens

Humidity in Singapore: what it does to gold and silver

Our air is warm and wet all year, and a closed safe holds on to that moisture. Pure gold is chemically very stable, so a 999.9 bar won't tarnish sitting in a drawer. The packaging is a different story. Cardboard boxes, paper certificates and assay cards can soften, warp or go mouldy after a few damp years.

Silver needs more care. It reacts with sulphur compounds in the air, and humidity speeds that up: first a yellow tinge, then brown, then dark tarnish. Rubber bands and some foams and papers give off sulphur as well, so keep them well away from your silver. Our guide on keeping silver bright goes into tarnish and milk spots in more detail.

Put a few rechargeable silica gel packs in the safe and dry them out once they change colour. Anti-tarnish strips are useful for silver. If the room itself stays damp, running a dehumidifier, or the air-con on its dry setting now and then, keeps the whole lot in better condition.

Handling bullion: gloves, edges and fingerprints

Your fingers carry oils and salts. On a gold bar, a fingerprint is mostly a cosmetic annoyance. On silver coins and proof finishes, prints can etch into the surface over time and stay there for good.

Wear clean nitrile gloves, or lint-free cotton ones, when you take pieces out. Hold coins by the rim, not the faces. Lift bars by the edges and put them down on a soft cloth, never straight onto a hard counter. Gold at 999.9 is soft and picks up dents and scratches easily.

Then put it all away again. Taking everything out to look at every week does nothing except add wear, and once a year, when you check your list, is usually enough. Don't clean or polish anything either. Polishing scratches the surface and tends to leave a piece looking worse than before.

Why the original packaging is worth keeping

Many bars come sealed in an assay card from the refiner, printed with the brand, weight, fineness and often a serial number. Coins usually come in capsules or tubes. That packaging protects the metal and keeps its identifying details attached to it.

Keep bars in their cards and coins in their capsules or tubes, all inside the safe. Don't cut a card open just to hold the bar. Whether a sealed card should stay sealed is a fair question, and our separate guide on sealed assay cards covers it.

When you sell to us, the final amount is set at the counter after testing, at that moment's price. Packaging doesn't replace testing. A clean, intact card with a serial number that matches the bar does make the piece easier to identify, though, and the visit goes more smoothly.

Keeping a list and telling someone you trust

Write down what you own. For each piece, note the brand, weight, fineness, serial number if it has one, and where and when you bought it. Keep receipts and invoices with the list, and take clear photos of each item in its packaging.

Keep a copy somewhere other than the safe: a sealed envelope with your important documents, say, or an encrypted file. A list locked inside the safe is no use if the safe itself goes missing. Our guide on keeping the paperwork covers which records to hold on to.

Then tell one family member you trust. Families sometimes find a parent's gold only later, with no idea what it is, where it came from or how to sell it. That person should know the bullion exists, where the list is, how to open the safe and which dealer you bought from. If your holdings are significant, mention them in your will and talk it through with a lawyer.