How Chain-of-Custody Documentation Protects Your Bullion

A bar without a documented history is worth less than a bar with one. Refiners, banks and auction houses will discount — or refuse outright — metal that cannot demonstrate an unbroken chain of custody from the refinery to the point of sale, because the alternative is to re-assay it at their own cost and risk. Chain-of-custody documentation is therefore not bureaucracy; it is part of the value of the asset.

At Real Vault the chain begins at intake. The deposit receipt names the person who delivered the metal and the officer who received it, records the scale readings and the dimensions checked, and lists every bar with its serial number, refinery, fineness, form, weight and certificate reference. Intake photographs and any refinery or assay certificates are attached. Both parties sign, and the record is uploaded to your portal.

Every subsequent movement adds a link. When bars are sealed for transport, the seal numbers and the container are recorded, the sealing is witnessed by two officers, and the departure record is signed. At the destination the seals are checked and a handover record is signed by our escort and the receiving custodian. If the metal returns, the same happens in reverse. A bar that has travelled Warsaw–Frankfurt–Warsaw therefore has an intake record, two departure records and two handover records, all cross-referenced by serial number.

Documents are retained for as long as you are a client and for the statutory period afterwards — currently five years under Polish anti-money-laundering law, and longer where our insurers require it. They are stored in a private, access-controlled system and made available to you through the portal; they can be shared with your auditor, tax adviser or a prospective buyer with your consent.

The same principle applies to succession. We keep a verified next-of-kin record for every private client, so that in the event of death or incapacity the holdings can be released to the right person without dispute. Because the record is verified against identity documents and can only be changed by our staff after verification, it cannot be altered by anyone who merely obtains your login.

For institutional clients we can provide periodic custody confirmations in the form your auditor requires, listing bars by serial number as at the reporting date, and we can arrange physical inspection of your position on site by appointment.

In short: the paperwork is the proof. Keeping it complete and continuous is one of the main services a custodian provides, and it is why we insist on documentation at every step even when it slows things down by a few minutes.