It’s a safe bet that most readers of this column who hold physical precious metals – gold, silver, platinum and palladium – do so because they view the as a store of value. Gold and silver especially, have served in the role of honest money for at least five millennia.

With a melting point 700 degrees higher than gold, the Spaniards weren’t able to determine how to utilize platinum, but they still considered it to be valuable, calling it platina – “little silver.” It would be tossed it back into a stream so that it might be able to “grow up”.

Gold, silver, and copper were monetary metals – not chosen because some authority decreed it, but through trial, error and successful application in everyday life. (Under certain situations, as when India briefly banned gold importation, platinum and silver demand as substitutes spiked.)

Today, cautious “stackers” don’t widely advertise what they hold, not because they are doing something nefarious, but as a practical matter to avoid the possibility of being robbed.

And more fundamentally, because like many other things in our personal lives, it’s really no one else’s business, unless we decide to make it so.

Historically, this has more than once become an intensely practical matter, as when Jews fleeing Nazi oppression in the 1930’s secreted gold out of Germany, disguised as box hinges and belt buckles painted black. In the case of fleeing Vietnamese in the 1970’s (or more recently, Middle Eastern families) it has served as an exchange for life-saving transportation to a different continent and a new life.

Closer to home, Americans felt the sting of government intrusion in 1933 when they were ordered by Federal decree – not long after the President had stated publicly that he would not do so – under penalty of fine or imprisonment, to “turn in your gold.”

Banks were closed for four days “in order to prevent the export, hoarding, or earmarking of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency.” (So much for storing precious metals in safety deposit boxes.)