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Reserved bars

What is a "reserved bar"?

Ordinarily the gold, silver, platinum or palladium you own through BullionVault is not part of a specific bar. Instead, your property is held within the bulk quantity of bars stored for our users. But if you hold enough bullion in any vault to make up one or more whole standard bullion bars, then you can select bars up to your balance, and choose to have them registered against your name. Then they become "reserved bars" and are your exclusive property.

Is a reserved bar "allocated" metal?

All of your BullionVault gold, silver, platinum and palladium is allocated, whether or not you have a reserved bar. Allocation is the process of taking a gold-, silver-, platinum- or palladium-denominated balance sheet liability - usually of a bank - and converting it into real physical metal owned outright by the buyer. BullionVault bullion is allocated when the metal is collected and shipped to our vaults.

Reserved bars offer the additional protection of a public declaration that a specific bar belongs to a specific person.

What are the advantages of having a reserved bar?

There are several advantages to having a reserved bar.

  • The Daily Audit will publicly show that the particular bar belongs exclusively to you. It will appear against your nickname below the master bar list for each vault.
  • The bar will be taken out of dealing circulation. It will no longer be available for trading, by you or anyone, and will be listed in your account against your reserved balance. You will be able to release it at any time when you want to deal.

What are the charges?

This is a charge of 0.1-0.2% to reserve the bar in your name. There is no charge to release it. See our tariff for more information.

In addition, the vaulting charge for reserved gold increases to 0.18% per year, in comparison to our standard charges. The vaulting charge for reserved silver, platinum or palladium rises to 0.72% per year.

These charges are much lower than allocated whole bar ownership at most banks, where annual charges are usually about 1.5%. The comparison with ETFs is also favourable. There the annual management charge is usually 0.4% for gold, and you are a beneficiary of a trust which owns a pool of gold bars, rather than a direct owner. You cannot register a bar of gold, silver, platinum or palladium in your name through an ETF.

How do I reserve a bar?

Step 1. Make sure you are logged in. Press ACCOUNT and then click the RESERVE BARS sub-menu option.
Step 2. If you have enough available bullion in any vault to reserve a bar, you will see a list of bars that you could reserve, largest first. If you have enough available bullion in multiple vaults, a pull-down menu will allow you to see which bars can be reserved in each of those vaults. Click on the RESERVE button to the right of any bar you wish to reserve. Since all BullionVault bars are standardised there's little to choose between them. If you're not sure which bar to choose you should probably select the first one, as it will be the largest.
Step 3. You'll be shown the full details of the bar, its current valuation, and an estimate of the reservation cost. If you want to proceed, click CONFIRM.
Step 4. You will be returned to the reserved bars page, and newly-reserved bar will appear in the list at the bottom. If you still have sufficient metal, you can return to step 2 and reserve another bar.

How do I release a bar?

You need to release a gold, silver, platinum or palladium bar before you can sell your metal, by following the steps below.

Step 1. Make sure you are logged in. Press ACCOUNT and then click the RESERVE BARS sub-menu option.
Step 2. At the bottom of the page you'll see a list of bars reserved in your name. Choose the bar you want to release, and click RELEASE.
Step 3. You'll be shown the full details of the bar. If you want to proceed, click CONFIRM.
Step 4. You will be returned to the reserved bars page. You metal is now released, and can be sold whenever you wish.

I have a bar reserved in my name - can I collect it from the vault?

You can contact us to arrange delivery, but you should consider the issues involved in taking physical custody first.