How to hold gold and silver: IRA, dealer delivery, vault, or app

By Silver of Truth editorial Last updated: October 12, 2026

Physical silver and gold are easy to want and hard to hold well. The metal is fungible; the wrapper is not. What you pay on the way in, what you pay every year, and what you actually own when something goes wrong depend on which structure you choose—not on which brand advertises the loudest.

Four options matter for most readers. You can keep IRS-eligible metal inside a self-directed 401(k) or IRA, with a custodian, a depository, and a short list of allowed products. You can buy from a dealer and take coins or bars home. You can leave ounces in a vault or certificate program—allocated, pool-allocated, or unallocated—and live with the fee and counterparty terms that come with each. Or you can use an app to follow spots, premiums, positioning, and your own holdings while the metal sits somewhere else.

Below, the four are compared on title, premium, carry cost, and failure mode. If you want to see COMEX inventory vault by vault, the Shanghai premium, and dealer prices side by side while you decide, Silver of Truth is the premium iPhone app built for that.

Three costs that get mixed up

Sales calls and comparison pages often mash four invoices into one story. They are not the same bill.

Entry. The premium over spot you pay a dealer, or the commission / mark-up a vault marketplace charges when you buy. Paid once (or each time you trade).

Carry. Custodian and depository fees on an IRA; annual storage on vaulted metal; insurance and secure storage if you hold coins yourself. Paid every year the metal sits.

Friction. Shipping in or out, IRA-eligible product limits, conversion from unallocated to allocated, physical withdrawal from a vault, account close-out. Paid when you change your mind.

A weekly app subscription is none of those. Confusing the bills is how people compare a research screen with a depository invoice.

Metal inside a 401(k) or IRA

Retirement metal is a tax wrapper first and a bullion purchase second. Three named roles sit between you and the bar.

1. Custodian — Administers the IRA, reports to the IRS, and processes purchases at your direction. It is not the shop that quotes the coin.
2. Dealer — Sells the eligible coins or bars and ships them to the depository the account uses.
3. Depository — An IRS-approved facility that keeps physical possession of the metal. Equity Trust, for example, lists partners including Brink’s, Delaware Depository, International Depository Services, A-Mark Global Logistics / Loomis, and Texas Bullion Depository.

Eligible product. Section 408(m) of the Internal Revenue Code treats an IRA’s acquisition of a collectible as a distribution equal to its cost. Certain coins, including American Eagles, sit on a statutory list that takes them out of that collectible definition. Bullion of the required fineness is out of the definition only when a bank or an approved trustee keeps physical possession of the bullion. Home storage of IRA-purchased metal does not survive that structure.

In McNulty v. Commissioner, 157 T.C. No. 10 (November 18, 2021), the Tax Court held that personal possession of American Eagles purchased with IRA funds was a taxable distribution. The coin carve-out did not authorize a closet. If the metal is in the IRA, it is not at home. If it is at home, it is not in the IRA. Coins you already own personally are a separate pile; owning them does not turn them into a contribution. Contributions are cash (or trustee-to-trustee transfers of retirement money). A tax advisor owns any claimed exception.

What Equity Trust publishes (one custodian with a public fee FAQ)

Equity Trust is cited here because it publishes a Fee FAQs page and a fee schedule—not as a recommendation. Storage alone is $160 per year segregated or $110 per year non-segregated. Segregated, on that FAQ, means metals stored separately and identified as yours; non-segregated means similar metals pooled with other clients while ownership is tracked by recordkeeping. Shipping to or from the depository is separate; the FAQ quotes a typical range of $50–$300+. Account closing is $250. Wires are $30. Paper statements are $60 a year if you decline e-statements. Annual maintenance is based on prior-year account value and billed in the first quarter; the public FAQ does not print a flat 2026 dollar grid for that line—read the myEQUITY invoice or request the schedule assigned to the account.

Do not treat a third-party “all-in gold IRA” blog figure as Equity Trust’s price. The FAQ does not publish a single blended number that covers custodian, storage, dealer premium, and shipping.

Who this option suits. Investors who want metal exposure inside retirement money and accept eligible-product limits plus ongoing custodian and depository bills. Who it does not suit. Anyone who needs the coins in hand, or who was sold a “home storage gold IRA” as a workaround for McNulty.

Buy from a dealer and hold the metal yourself

Title is simple: after checkout and delivery, the coins or bars are yours. The cost is the premium over spot in the live cart, plus shipping and insurance while the package is in transit, plus whatever you spend afterward on a safe, a bank box, or a private vault—and on insurance your homeowner’s policy may not fully cover.

Premiums move with product, mint, and day. Serious buyer discipline is to read the cart, not a frozen table cell. Shipping schedules, by contrast, are often published and comparable.

None of these rows is a buy recommendation. APMEX and JM Bullion are familiar; they are not the whole market. SD Bullion, Money Metals, AGE, and Kitco publish schedules worth reading before you assume every reputable dealer prices delivery the same way.

Failure mode. Theft, loss, under-insurance, and liquidity when you sell back (bid–ask depends on product and dealer). Counterparty risk after delivery is mostly behind you; storage risk is yours.

Who this option suits. Buyers who want tangible metal and accept personal custody. Who it does not suit. Anyone who needs the purchase inside a retirement wrapper, or who wants professional vaulting without running a household security budget.

Vault and certificate products: what “allocated” actually means

Vault programs sit between take-home coins and an IRA. You buy metal that stays in a professional vault. The brochure word that decides your legal position is whether the holding is allocated, pool-allocated, or unallocated.

Allocated. Specific bars are set aside with your title (or as bailee for you). You typically pay fabrication and ongoing storage. Storage fees are often the proof you are an owner, not a creditor.

Pool allocated. You own an undivided interest in a segregated pool of bars that the operator says it will not use in its working inventory. Storage is usually cheaper than fully allocated; fabrication may still apply.

Unallocated. You hold a claim on a pool of metal the operator may use in its operations. There is often no storage fee—because you are owed metal, not shown specific bars. If the operator cannot deliver enough metal on demand, redemption risk is real: you are closer to a creditor than to an owner of identified bullion. Convert to allocated only if stock and fabrication terms allow.

Perth Mint Certificate Program (and Depository storage)

Perth Mint’s public storage pages define the three options above. Published Certificate / Depository storage rates include allocated gold 1.00% per year, allocated silver 1.90% per year, and pool-allocated silver 0.95% per year. Unallocated gold, silver, and platinum attract no storage fee on those pages. The Certificate Program adds a $50 fee per certificate issued and a $5,000 minimum trade size; distributor transaction fees sit outside Perth’s own table. Storage for Certificate / Depository Program accounts is charged quarterly and invoiced six-monthly in arrears.

Unallocated’s “free storage” is the price of a different legal relationship. Allocated’s higher rate buys bar-level title and removal from working inventory.

BullionVault (allocated marketplace)

BullionVault’s published tariff prices allocated gold, silver, platinum, and palladium on an order board. Order-board commission starts at 0.50% under $75,000 dealt in that metal since account anniversary, then 0.10% to $825,000, then 0.05% above—per metal, so cheap gold dealing does not pull silver into a lower band. Custody including insurance is 0.12% per year on gold ($4 monthly minimum) and 0.48% per year on silver, platinum, and palladium ($8 monthly minimum). Silver custody is four times the gold rate on those published figures. Physical withdrawal and armoured transport sit on a separate tariff schedule. BullionVault notes that balances around $2,000 can be inefficient against the monthly floors.

OneGold (vaulted digital claim; APMEX / Sprott ecosystem)

OneGold’s support and APMEX FAQ pages publish storage of 0.12% per year for gold and 0.30% per year for silver (and platinum on OneGold’s calculator article), billed quarterly on average daily balance, with a $5 per quarter account minimum. Metal is vaulted with named partners (APMEX, Brink’s, Loomis, Royal Canadian Mint, and others depending on product). Buy/sell premiums and redemption spreads are product-specific; read the live quote before treating a blog number as the cost. Silver storage here runs two and a half times the gold rate on the published basis points—same pattern as other vault tariffs, different ratio.

Who vault options suit. Investors who want professional custody, clearer fee schedules than a home stack, and (for allocated) owner-style title. Who they do not suit. Anyone who needs coins in hand tomorrow, or who mistakes unallocated “free storage” for free ownership.

Apps and trackers: research screens, not vaults

An app can show the spot, log what you already hold, surface news, and open the warehouse and positioning data under the price. It does not replace a dealer, a custodian, or a depository.

Silver of Truth

Silver of Truth is a premium iPhone app for readers who want to see what sits under the spot price. What it shows, in the order most readers will use it:

• COMEX inventory, vault by vault. Registered and eligible ounces at each approved depository (Brink’s, JPMorgan, HSBC, Delaware Depository and the rest), with daily changes and cumulative movements in and out.
• The Shanghai premium. The Shanghai Gold Exchange silver price (Ag T+D) against COMEX futures and SLV, with a 30-day spread history.
• Dealer premiums from six shops. APMEX, JM Bullion, SD Bullion, Money Metals, American Gold Exchange, and Kitco on one board, with a mark showing which prices were read live from the dealer’s page.
• Deal Analyzer. Check whether a dealer’s price is a good deal before you buy.
• Positioning and deliveries. COT positioning from the CFTC, COMEX delivery data, and ETF flows where the data is available.
• Everyday tools. The gold/silver ratio, price alerts, a portfolio with live melt value for physical metal and mining stocks, mining research, and news with trending posts from X.
• Live gold and silver spot prices.

It does not sell coins, open IRAs, or custody metal. Free download with limited features and ads; Premium on the US App Store is $3.99/week · $6.99/month · $69.99/year. You can download Silver of Truth on the App Store.

Where other apps leave gaps

Use Gold Tracker if you only need a local holdings list; use TradingView if you live in charts; use Kitco when you want that newsroom. Use Silver of Truth when you want vault-level COMEX inventory, the Shanghai premium, dealer prices, and a deal check in one metals-first app.

Putting the four options side by side

If you hold both retirement money and a home stack, keep the piles separate in your head. The IRA buys eligible metal into a depository. The drawer stays the drawer. The vault bills annual basis points. The app bills a subscription or shows ads.

Sources

Fees and rules below are from each provider’s published pages. Check the provider’s current page before you act.

IRA / tax

• Equity Trust Fee FAQs — https://www.trustetc.com/sdira-resources/fee-faqs/
• Equity Trust precious metals client resource / depositories — https://www.trustetc.com/pmclient/
• Equity Trust fee schedule (PDF, storage $160 / $110) — https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/forms.equitytrustcompany.info/ET_2024_UIRA_Fee-Schedule.pdf
• IRS Publication 590-A (contributions; collectibles discussion) — https://www.irs.gov/publications/p590a
• McNulty v. Commissioner, 157 T.C. No. 10 (2021) — e.g. https://www.leagle.com/decision/intco20211118j44

Vault / certificate

• BullionVault tariff — https://www.bullionvault.com/help/tariff.html
• Perth Mint storage fees — https://www.perthmint.com/invest/information-about-gold-and-silver-storage/fees/
• Perth Mint storage options (allocated / pool / unallocated) — https://www.perthmint.com/invest/information-about-gold-and-silver-storage/storage-options/
• OneGold storage calculation — https://support.onegold.com/hc/en-us/articles/360016270371-How-is-the-storage-price-calculated
• APMEX OneGold FAQs (0.12% / 0.30%, $5/quarter) — https://www.apmex.com/onegold-digitalgold/faqs

Dealers (shipping / published premium language)

• APMEX shipping FAQ — https://www.apmex.com/faq/shipping-gold-silver-physical-products-free-shipping-available
• JM Bullion homepage / free-shipping policy pages — https://www.jmbullion.com/ · https://www.jmbullion.com/new-199-free-shipping/
• SD Bullion shipping policies — https://sdbullion.com/sd-bullion-shipping-policies
• Money Metals legal disclosures (premium ranges) — https://www.moneymetals.com/privacy/legal-disclosures
• American Gold Exchange how-to-buy (shipping $25 / free $1,000+) — https://www.amergold.com/about-age/how-to-buy.php
• Kitco shipping & insurance (US & Canada) — https://online.kitco.com/faq/shipping-and-insurance

Apps

• Silver of Truth App Store — https://apps.apple.com/us/app/silver-of-truth/id6758162168
• Silver of Truth site / tools — https://www.silveroftruth.com

Silver of Truth editorial. Not tax, legal, or investment advice.