Securing the Stack

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Casey Jones

Train left the station...
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GIM2 Refugee
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Okay...this is a little more involved than the usual question.

Here's the background: My part of Montana has four seasons: Snowpack-Melt; Fire; Harvest and Permafrost. "Fire" season runs from two weeks after the last of the spring rains, all the way to the first snowfall. Like with parts of Colorado, we're in an Alpine Desert climate, although there's plenty of ground cover.

Rain is not common in the summer. The groundwater moisture comes from the melting snowpack, which typically lasts into July. August, then, is the time of the worst forest fires.

This year, we had almost no snow. In town, we had two one-inch snowfalls. Normally there'd be about 18 inches of snow on frozen ground right now. Nope, the ground never froze and we've got trees budding.

So, we're gonna have HELLACIOUS fires. Whole towns have been burned out in this area in years past - although none in the last 40 years or so. But some came close, eleven years ago near Lolo Pass.

So. I'm prepared - bugout bag; camping gear; I can go live for some months in a motel in another part of the country, if I have to. If I have an apartment to come back to.

If there's anything left. This town has grown nearly 50 percent in the last 20 years - to 90k in the city limits. This was a CROSSROADS; a railroad and logging town. "A River Runs Through It" - the book the movie was based on was done by a local writer, of life that now was a century ago.

So if the town is hit, there's gonna be chaos.

So. What, take my stacks WITH me? Are you nuts? With the paramilitary policing done in Blue States, and even some purple states...where the car can be searched and assets seized as evidence of criminal activity?

Right now, I have them well set up. PROBABLY where I have them, will not be destroyed. I won't get into details - that would involve clues.

But if that part of the city WAS destroyed...well, we all know I either have them buried or hidden. Even burying isn't safe from the ravages of fire - fire-breaks are bulldozed; and land shifts with rains after fires; and police keep people out to prevent looters, and landmarks are lost.

Inside a structure...well, suppose I had the stacks in my apartment house. And suppose winds caught the roof on fire...and crews saved much of the building.

It will STILL be condemned and bulldozed immediately. Former residents are almost-never allowed back in to recover property - you'll hear the cops tell residents, "that's why you have insurance." Yeah, sure.

So, that leaves me with (suspect) banks' SD vaults. Even if my credit-union is as honest as Abe, they may be under a bank holiday by the time I make it back.

The only surviving family I have is in Colorado. Woke-Gay-Mafia Central. And if I go, carrying a box, even if locked, an ask those good folks to babysit it...they'll either suspect a bomb (we have had issues) or force it open.

And I KNOW they think goldbugs are nuts. Early on in my Stacking Life, I got an earful. Probably the whole thing would wind up being "lost."

Anyone got an idea how to handle a calamity bug-out, in terms of securing metals?
 
Well burying it would make it fire-proof.... but you have to own some land to do that.

Ponds also provide a nice fireproof resting place. :unsure:
That...is risky. When a forest fire sweeps through, the very texture of the land often changes.

And, just as you note I don't own land (have access to an acre as property of this apartment complex; but digging would be a 3 am detail) I don't have a pond handy. We have three creeks and a river; but the river has wild variations in level, and likely would be sucked dry in a fire emergency.

If I were away when the apartment complex burned...with all the emergency-vehicle tracks all over the lawn...and this after going around police barricades...how am I gonna get out there to search, before the developers' 'dozers arrive to start digging foundations for hundred-unit rabbit warrens?

Because that is the Current Thing here. Our government, the officers, are mostly from Calitardistan. They've settled in and taken over. THEY have inserted a clause in zoning laws...ANYWHERE is okay to build multifamily housing structures. They've put them up just off the easment for the Interstate. Put one in what was a railroad scrap yard - yeah, fifty yards from what had been the turntable and roundhouse; and they still service and store locomotives there.

They're building them everywhere, because, unlike most of the rest of the country, this little region has become a refuge for Cali expats. I could come back, two months after bugging out, and find the whole parcel here redeveloped with new footings dug and poured, and the ground all re-sculpted.

It is a problem.

But, thanks for thinking. I'm not far from Flathead Lake, a very-large (I think) deep lake, but it's a popular tourist destination. And if I later went diving and came up with a box of doubloons (or k-rands) the Tribal police (much of the shore is Reservation land) would be yelling I have to pay a salvage bounty or tax.
 
So, that leaves me with (suspect) banks' SD vaults. Even if my credit-union is as honest as Abe, they may be under a bank holiday by the time I make it back.

Your post reminded me of the covid lock downs. Around here a lot of the banks were closed for a good while. As for the ones that remained open, you had to make appointments to get inside. And they had reduced hours.

jm2c so far.
 
He is about an 8 hour drive south of you. PM dealer that can secure them. I trust him.
That sounds interesting.

Is this someone in Utah? Not that it matters; but I know the Mormons have a, how shall we say, more-Biblical look on life.
 
just my thoughts....traveling with gold jewelry ...and some small coins Ie grams or 1/10ths (easy to hide) ....then main stacks...i like diversity.....and multiple locations...
 
Money Metals runs a gold/silver vault service in Idaho: https://www.moneymetals.com/silver-gold-storage

Bob Coleman runs a vault in Idaho. He seems to have satisfied customers on X, but I don't know much about his business: https://www.goldsilvervault.com/

Josh Philip Phair (Scottsdale Mint CEO) is running one in Wyoming that has contracts with the State of Wyoming and other big players (Wells Fargo etc), but I'm not sure if you can deposit your own metal or not (you might have to call/email them for details): https://www.thewyomingreserve.com/

SD Bullion runs a gold/silver vault somewhere near the border of Ohio and Michigan: https://sdbullion.com/gold-silver-storage

Of course the State of Texas also runs the Texas Bullion Depository, but I'm guessing that's a bit too far for your needs: https://www.texasbulliondepository.gov/
 
Those are good places to start, sounds like. I'm hoping they have some sort of dedicates storage, and not a program where they accept my metal as inventory, give me a claim for X quantity, that I can (hopefully) cash out later.
 
Just looked at the Idaho Armored Vaults site. Seems exactly what I'm looking for.
just my thoughts....traveling with gold jewelry ...and some small coins Ie grams or 1/10ths (easy to hide) ....then main stacks...i like diversity.....and multiple locations...
Always, diversify.

Some will go with me - although cashing out on the road will be very, very onerous. Maybe impossible. The days of going into a pawn shop with a coin and leaving with (fair exchange) cash, seem over. My PMD locally is as fair as anyone, and while he has arranged for a large bank, nearby, to cash ANY check with ID (they are used to it, I know) he won't trade for cash or cash his own checks.

That won't be the case in whatever hole-up location I find myself in.

I'm thinking a three-way split. Some will go to whatever depository I choose. Some, go with me; and some will be left behind - as if I was a way for a long weekend.

The important thing is, I not be left robbed of it all, or see it destroyed in what's coming.
 
That...is risky. When a forest fire sweeps through, the very texture of the land often changes.

And, just as you note I don't own land (have access to an acre as property of this apartment complex; but digging would be a 3 am detail) I don't have a pond handy. We have three creeks and a river; but the river has wild variations in level, and likely would be sucked dry in a fire emergency.

If I were away when the apartment complex burned...with all the emergency-vehicle tracks all over the lawn...and this after going around police barricades...how am I gonna get out there to search, before the developers' 'dozers arrive to start digging foundations for hundred-unit rabbit warrens?

Because that is the Current Thing here. Our government, the officers, are mostly from Calitardistan. They've settled in and taken over. THEY have inserted a clause in zoning laws...ANYWHERE is okay to build multifamily housing structures. They've put them up just off the easment for the Interstate. Put one in what was a railroad scrap yard - yeah, fifty yards from what had been the turntable and roundhouse; and they still service and store locomotives there.

They're building them everywhere, because, unlike most of the rest of the country, this little region has become a refuge for Cali expats. I could come back, two months after bugging out, and find the whole parcel here redeveloped with new footings dug and poured, and the ground all re-sculpted.

It is a problem.

But, thanks for thinking. I'm not far from Flathead Lake, a very-large (I think) deep lake, but it's a popular tourist destination. And if I later went diving and came up with a box of doubloons (or k-rands) the Tribal police (much of the shore is Reservation land) would be yelling I have to pay a salvage bounty or tax.

Always a public park. Pick a quiet corner of a larger park and take GPS reading... Risky but may be worth a portion if its getting too large to carry in a quick pinch. Yes, that will be odd and have its own risks too but might work. Certainly better than outside a large apartment. I don't see that working at all.
 
Always a public park. Pick a quiet corner of a larger park and take GPS reading... Risky but may be worth a portion if its getting too large to carry in a quick pinch. Yes, that will be odd and have its own risks too but might work. Certainly better than outside a large apartment. I don't see that working at all.
I say "large" but we only have 60 units here, all of them to 60-plus oldsters. (Not assisted living; just built on tax-free land in a 99-year covenant for seniors). But we are all oldsters, not the wild scenes you see in modern urban apartments.

The only problem is, many people here are OLD. The walls have eyes.

Also, since the building has been here 40 years...it's possible in digging a stash, I might dig UP someone's forgotten stash, heh-heh....
 
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