NEWCASTLE - Safe Deposit Facility - open

[Paul]

http://newcastlevaults.co.uk/

Anyone local to the north-east, I read about this new safe deposit vault opening in the local paper this morning.  

It is opening on Thursday.

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/business/business-news/newcastles-first-high-tech-security-13207108

No other safe deposit places in Newcastle or indeed anywhere north of Leeds

Pricing looks fair enough for the smallest box  (£150 per year / £12.50 per month / £2.88 per week / 41p per day). also a 20% discount if you purchase for 5+ years

This is a lot cheaper than what you would pay in London/

A place to keep a little spare cash, usb drives of info, unused credit cards, personal docs, passport. watches, jewellery, viagra pills and of course your gold / silver

Just a shame there is little info on the owners/company.  They have an established vault in already in Dublin and Glasgow apparently.

As with anything in life, never put all your eggs in one basket, especially with this being a new business, according to company check they incorporated this business in 2016

Hope this helps, any fellow Geordies on board here where this facility may be of use to

 

[mondy41]

I have a safe deposit box with this company - Don't know much about them personally but they have been around for a few years now.  I believe my cost is €650 per annum/cheaper box options available but they are very small.

I live 3 hours from there vault but its my only option ATM and have accessed it on Saturday/Sunday with no issue.

[SilverTanner]

Very interesting and thankyou for posting!

This is great news and long over due for the region and will save on trips 'down south'.

So the question is how many NGC slabs can you get in the box?

[Paul]

18 minutes ago, mondy41 said:

I have a safe deposit box with this company - Don't know much about them personally but they have been around for a few years now.  I believe my cost is €650 per annum/cheaper box options available but they are very small.

I live 3 hours from there vault but its my only option ATM and have assessed it on Saturday/Sunday with no issue.

Nice 'one of our own' here have used them in past, Merrionvault I see is their Dublin vault.  

No reason to think the worst of a comapny, just me being my usual sceptical, wary, mistrusting self  

Reading further they are locating a 'Newcastle Bullion' in the same storage facility to make over counter purchases

http://newcastlebullion.co.uk/

It doesn't look fully set up and live as yet however, but nice to have another option and buying source in Newcastle

[Paul]

8 minutes ago, SilverTanner said:

Very interesting and thankyou for posting!

This is great news and long over due for the region and will save on trips 'down south'.

So the question is how many NGC slabs can you get in the box?

Glad to have been of help to you.  

I plan on having a look about next time i am in town, to check the set up is like, so will report back

I might consider relocating my current box from 'darn 'sarf and repatriate it back to Geordie soil 

[SilverTanner]

It will be interesting to see what their buy and sell premiums are particularly compared to the jewellers around the corner! It would be good if they have a choice of coins all the time.

Next to the Bigg market is convenient for the station and a more colourful part of town the later it gets in the day?. It would be surrounded by lots of empty buildings at the moment but the area is undergoing much regeneration with new commercial blocks going up.

I may be able to get down there on Friday.

[Paul]

@SilverTanner  their premiums will have to be super low, as it is hard to beat Newcastle Jewellery Company and Corbits around the corner on price.   I find both both are very fair compared to the online boys once you have bought a few times and your face is known to them, plus no delivery worries or extra postage costs.

Report back what you opinions are of this new safe deposit place, if you could, once you have visited.  As i wont be through to town for a few weeks

(what is the place like, how super secure, how does it feel to you, what are the staff like, level of discretion etc.) 

[SilverTanner]

Well I have now visited.

Unless you know it is there you would never have any idea - this is a good thing. It is the basement of a shared office block with no mention on the list of companies on the board inside the building which only covers the floors 1-4, some office suites in the building are empty. There was however a flyer on the security guards desk who I had to ask how to get there. Multiple doors with intercoms, like HGM, but they seem much much more robust, like a bank vault, and the place seems to be very well built. Safety deposit boxes vary from 2"x5"x24" (boxAA) at £150 per year upto 33"x16"x24" (boxI) at £3285 per year. Insurance is £4 per £1000 per year. Staff appeared very professional. I saw 3 staff and I was the only 'customer'. I didn't get to see the safety deposit boxes on this occasion.

Now for the bullion side - this was where the staff were a little uncertain and several people had to try and answer my queries.

The bullion side is gold only, no silver, platinum, palladium etc. There is no bullion kept on site and it is all ordered when requested. They didn't seem to recognise the names of the common bullion coins other than maybe sovereigns. They couldn't give me values for the premiums as that would be dependent on how much you ordered and didn't seem to have a fixed scale. On further discussion a handful of sovereigns they thought would probably be about 5.5% over spot but didn't seem very sure without actually placing an order. In terms of selling to them, again this is gold only and they will send everything away for testing even for things like sovereigns and the price will be determined at the time of them receiving the test results back which could be several days, price appears to be about 4% below spot at best (this is also subject to the quantity) but again it seems they would need to actually process an order to find out.

So potentially useful for a safety deposit box, particularly as there is nothing else here in the North which is great, although I think I will carry on picking up sovereigns from the Newcastle Jewellery Company

[Paul]

Many thanks for the comprehensive update @SilverTanner

It sounds like their emphasis is safe deposit centre first at this time, bullion sales will probably adapt and improve with time, after all it only opened yesterday I believe

I guess the staff you have encountered today may be new starters or not trained up on gold as yet.

I will pop in - next time I am in town.

[SilverTanner]

4 hours ago, Paul said:

Many thanks for the comprehensive update @SilverTanner

It sounds like their emphasis is safe deposit centre first at this time, bullion sales will probably adapt and improve with time, after all it only opened yesterday I believe

I guess the staff you have encountered today may be new starters or not trained up on gold as yet.

I will pop in - next time I am in town.

As you say the official opening was only yesterday so I expect things will settle down over time. It does seem to be safety deposit boxes first but then that is the thing the region is missing!

[Pete]

I believe there are safe deposit boxes for rent in some branches of Metro bank which are springing up across the land.

[Paul]

Hi all 

As a follow up to my post about this new safety deposit facility last month in Newcastle I thought i would give an update.

I have been in and visited and now renting the smallest box.  £150 per year payable in advance,  (£12.50 month, £2.88 week, £0.41 day)

-10% Discount on rentals of 3 years+ 
-20% Discount on rentals of 5 years+

Any box rents are payable in advance in full, so no direct debits or bank details are needed on set up 

You can pay by cash to, so minimal paper trail if this is your want.  Who may want to keep their box secret from family/wife etc.

You can also pay by cheque/credit card/debit card/bank transfer 

You also have a £100 key deposit to be paid which is returned upon the closure of the box and return of the key.

You get free standard insurance cover of up to £10,000 

You need photo ID and address proof and submit bio-metric data, face photographs upon sign up 

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Impressive place, a cross between James Bond film and Bourne Identity.  

To repeat some of the points of @SilverTanner the facility is below ground in Cathedral Square in the Cloth Market.  

Whilst situated in the middle of a big party area of restaurants, pubs and clubs, this guarantees maximum footfall through the day with shoppers & local office workers and also through most of the night 7 nights a week  with party revellers into the wee small hours

As would be to expected, the places feels very secure at every stage. Very modern, light and bright.  CCTV outside building, inside building, in basement.  CCTV at every stage inside the facility. Zoned pinch-point areas (ie where you cant enter the next zone until the last zone is closed & locked automatically behind you).  x3 privacy rooms within the main vault itself

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If you are a gold stacker only with loose bullion, the smallest box should be sufficient for the life of your stacking for most here under £50k.  

Loose bullion sovereigns will store 100s of them.    50g and 100g and 250g gold bars will all fit nicely with room to spare for some paper work, cash, passport USB drives

Very cost effective 

The smallest box will quickly fill up if you adding NGC/PCGS slabs,quadrum cases as i took a couple to judge size and how many could be fitted. 

The next size box up is nearly double the price, which seriously adds to your costs over time.  Unless a lottery comes my way, the smallest box will be sufficient for me ongoing I think 

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Upon speaking with the staff more in detail, i have been told the vault is the highest grade possible.  Grade 7 or 8 i think they said.  Build to the custom spec required by the vaults insurers Lloyds of London.  Seismic shocks and motion sensors were required to as part of the insurance cover

The x3 staff that I have dealt with from sign up and on subsequent visits have all been very professional, courteous, friendly at every stage.  All recognised me upon my return which was nice.

Hopefully all will be great for years to come and the do good business, my only little worry is them being a newish company but from the looks of the standard of the facility some serious cash has been invested to a very high spec.  As with everything, not having all eggs in one basket, but hopefully this basket should be safe for my years to come, for just under £3 a week or the price of pint, this is fair value to sleep soundly your golden goodies are safe & secure

Lastly, this video & tour came up on local media of the safe deposit facility & vault in the past month with an interview with the company director (no need to have a facebook account to view the vid)

https://www.facebook.com/madeintynewear/videos/vb.1459361290990991/1896393110621138/?type=2&theater