Gold Star Bullion Security Safe keeping
Safe keeping
Vault custody where the record names the bar, not just the balance.
What we hold
Gold, silver, platinum and palladium in bar, ingot, coin and grain. Jewellery, precious and semi-precious stones, watches, and documents that must not be at your house or your office: deeds, certificates, wills, and the papers that prove title to everything else.
How storage is held
The storage type is the most important line on the mandate, and it is the line most often glossed over elsewhere. It decides what you own if something goes wrong.
| Type | What you own |
|---|---|
| Allocated | Specific, identified pieces. Your bars, by serial number, recorded to your account and nobody else's. They are not on our balance sheet. |
| Segregated | Allocated, and additionally kept physically apart from other clients' metal in its own space within the vault. |
| Pooled | A share of a larger holding of identical metal. Cheaper, and appropriate for some purposes, but you own a claim on a quantity, not a piece. |
What is recorded
Each piece is entered with its refiner, serial number as struck, year, fineness, gross weight, fine weight, assay reference where one exists, and its position in the vault. Every movement in or out is an append-only ledger entry: what moved, when, on whose instruction, against which document. Corrections are made as reversing entries, so nothing on the ledger is ever quietly rewritten.
Security
Treasury-grade vaults under continuous multi-layer security: physical construction, access control, monitoring and a two-person rule on the vault floor. Grades are offered as basic and premium, both in central business districts.
Getting metal out
Withdrawal is by written instruction from the mandated signatory, against identity verification, to a delivery address on the mandate or by collection in person. Allocated metal comes back as the same pieces unless you instruct otherwise.
There is no fee to release your own metal. Storage is billed periodically against the account, and carriage is quoted separately if you want us to move it. Nobody at this firm will ever ring you asking for a payment to unlock, clear or insure something you already own.