Purchase 500 acres in rural America and use the rest of your funds to purchase scrap plate steel to be dumped there.

Secure investment... not about to be stolen, not about to change in value. Good as gold.

Why buy gold with all of your money? Do you think you are going to get a deal on gold that nobody else gets?

Buy low... sell high... land is cheap right now.

I am,

Sri Oracle

Gold contracts are a waste if you are worried about a survival situation. If society suddenly fell apart anything on paper would be worthless.

I've done well on EBAY with gold. Do some research first about what kind of coins you want to get involved in. You buy in small quantities, generally one coin at a time. 500k seems like a lot to move but if you buy 3 or 4 coins a week, you'll be fully invested in a year, give or take.

At the moment the Feds haven't gotten their hooks into Ebay. Not saying there is no record, but with the volume of transactions you're a small fish swimming in a lot of data. You could set up more than one account even so no single username has too big a footprint.

Good luck, I wish I had the same problem!

at www.finance.yahoo.com/etf

you can get into minimum blocks of 100,000 units/shares of ETFs
for things like oil or other resources like minerals or gold,
As either Oil or Gold&PresciousMetals are both very good as a way of
preserving your wealth.

some of these funds are very exclusive, and you more or less lock your money into for at least a year at a time... iow, they are not very liquid,
so you have to commit like at those Hedge Funds

If you want bullion - deal in gold - there are tax advantages compared with other metals.

Deal in physical gold - not paper gold.

Use allocated storage.

Removing gold from the chain of integrity devalues it. IOW, if you take personal delivery then when you sell it will be at a discount because of the risk you have tampered with the bullion. Keeping it within the chain of integrity (only handled, moved and stored by certified professionals) means that you will get the best price when you sell.

The only people I deal with for this are www.bullionvault.com
I spent 2 months checking them out back in 2005/6 and have been using them ever since.

They maintain an on-line 24/7/365 internal market where no debt is allowed in the system. It is audited and published daily, and they keep it liquid. You can choose to buy and sell in Euros, Pounds or US$ and you choose whether to store your gold in New York, London or Zurich. Commissions are ridiculously low (0.02% for the amounts you are talking about) and storage costs are negligible. You can take physical delivery of your gold if you so wish.

Even if you don't deal with them, read their articles on the website - the educational value of them is priceless.

If you do deal with them, call them for a special quote as for the amount you are talking about they may need to adjust their orders and will probably give you a special rate.

Paul Tustain, the founder of bullionvault, wrote much of the software for interbank trading for the BIS. He made his original fortune writing the TAB betting/gambling software and then moved into setting up secure electronic banking systems. He knows how money really works and that is why he set up bullionvault - to enable the average Joe to protect his wealth by owning gold without getting fleeced with commissions and storage fees far above what the big traders pay.

I have complete confidence in them.


[edit on 24-6-2008 by News Junkie]

If you are going to get this for a "Sit-X" type situation, forget having gold in large amounts. Use silver instead. Let's say gold is $1,000 an ounce, and silver is $20 an ounce. How is the person you are doing business with going to change out that ounce of gold when you just want a few steaks, some alcohol, smokes, and ammo?

Also realize this: toilet paper, perfumes/deodorants, shampoo/conditioner, and women's makeup is going to be worth JUST AS MUCH AS GOLD in the event of a major collapse of civilization. You can take that to the bank! (pun intended).