The plan to sell is written before the plan to buy.
A reserve that cannot be drawn down on a planned timeline is not a reserve. The Office writes the exit posture — what the natural exit looks like, who the buyback counterparty is, what the sell-side spread is expected to run, what the documentation chain produces at sale — into §07 of the Strategy Brief before the acquisition is executed.
This page is the operational read on what that posture actually contains. Companion surfaces: /custody covers the held-state operational reality; /titling covers the ownership structure under which the exit happens; /pricing publishes the round-trip spread bands.
Exit posture is a section of the brief, not an afterthought.
The single most common operational failure in retail and adjacent precious-metals positions is a position that was easy to enter and becomes expensive or slow to exit. The premium structure was high; the buy-back spread is wider than the buy spread; the counterparty willing to pay a fair price for the product the seller now holds is not the original seller; the documentation that would establish provenance and bar-level identification at sale was never assembled.
The Office’s discipline is the inverse: sell-side spread ranges are published by format alongside the buy-side spreads on /pricing, the buyback counterparty pathway is named in the brief, and the documentation chain assembled during implementation is the same documentation that establishes provenance at sale. Round-trip economics are visible before any metal is purchased.
This is the structural commitment behind the brand-spine line: the plan to sell is written before the plan to buy. No exit-liquidity surprise. No retail premium revealed only at liquidation. No counterparty named only at the moment of sale.
The dedicated diligence treatment of why §07 is approved alongside §02–§06 — what the discipline costs the Office in discretion at sale, the three exit-side failure modes the discipline protects against, and the comparison-class table on which categories carry a written exit posture at entry — is Office Note 09 — The exit before the entry.
Four operational shapes. Each with a different brief treatment.
Reserves are not built to be exited the same way they were entered. The brief addresses each shape on its own operational terms.
Planned drawdown
A scheduled liquidation against named life events — retirement, education, a real-estate purchase, a private-business acquisition. The brief specifies the order in which line items are sold (typically smallest-lot first for maximum flexibility, larger Good Delivery formats last for tightest spread), the timing windows, and the order of buyback counterparties. The most common shape at Strategic Reserve and Private Reserve scale.
Rebalance
Partial liquidation triggered by relative-value or allocation-band conditions named in the brief — the reserve's share of the total balance sheet has grown or shrunk past a threshold the household and its wealth advisor agreed to. The brief names the threshold and the rebalance procedure; execution is coordinated with the wealth advisor.
Intergenerational transfer
No liquidation; a change of beneficial owner via the titling instrument. The metal stays at the depository; the holdings statement is re-issued in the receiving party's name; no acquisition or sale cost is incurred. The brief's §05 (titling) is what makes this shape clean — the structure is in place before the transfer event.
Full liquidation
Less common in practice but addressed explicitly. Triggered by structural reasons (a household plan change, a divorce that liquidates rather than divides, an executor decision at death). The brief's exit posture names the order of disposition, the buyback counterparties, and the expected timeline at scale (typically 4–12 weeks for a Family Reserve full liquidation, depending on format mix and market conditions).
Institutional-grade product clears at institutional-grade speed.
The reason exit liquidity for the Office’s book is structurally different from the retail bullion market is the form of the metal. The Office sources Good Delivery bars (LBMA-spec 400 ozt gold, COMEX-spec 1000 ozt silver), kilo bars from named refiners (Argor-Heraeus, MKS PAMP, Valcambi), and sovereign bullion coinage from major government mints. These are the instruments institutional precious-metals desks buy back at the cleared-market spread — not a retail dealer’s walk-in counter.
Numismatic and “semi-numismatic” product, the high-premium inventory that defines the retail-marketing segment, sells at a buyback spread that often reflects only the metal content (not the marketed premium). Sovereign bullion coinage and Good Delivery bars sell at bullion-grade institutional spreads. The form of the metal at acquisition determines the exit spread. The Office’s sourcing discipline at acquisition is, in operational terms, the exit discipline.
This is why §04 of the brief (Form of the reserve) and §07 (Exit posture) are written together. Format selection is not a cosmetic choice; it is the structural commitment to the kind of exit the engagement will face.
Primary, secondary, and second-opinion. Named in the brief.
The brief names a primary buyback counterparty, a secondary counterparty for redundancy, and a second-opinion path for clients who wish to benchmark the sell-side execution against an independent quote. The three-counterparty structure is the operational answer to the question “what if the firm I bought from is no longer there or no longer willing to transact at scale?”
Primary buyback counterparty. The Office maintains direct relationships with institutional buyback counterparties capable of clearing Good Delivery bars and large kilo-bar positions at the cleared-market spread. The specific firm is named in the brief at engagement; the counterparty is reviewed periodically and may change as relationships evolve.
Secondary counterparty. A second institutional firm is named for redundancy — specifically for the case where the primary counterparty is unavailable or uncompetitive on a given day. The two-counterparty discipline is structural; it does not mean the client routinely sells to both.
Second-opinion path. The client retains the right at any sale event to obtain an independent quote from a third party (a refiner’s exit desk, a private bank’s precious-metals desk, or another wholesale counterparty) and instruct the Office to execute against the better quote. This is not a feature; it is a structural commitment to keep the Office honest on every sale and to make the sell-side spread benchmarkable in real time.
Published by format on /pricing. Both sides of the round-trip.
Sell-side spread bands by format are published on /pricing §01 alongside the buy-side bands — the round-trip economics are visible before any metal is purchased. The specific figure on either side firms at the time of that transaction (buy at purchase, sell at sale) against the then-current LBMA fix and market conditions.
Both buy and sell spreads move with wholesale market conditions. A spread band published today is the band the Office expects to transact inside under typical market conditions; it is not a guarantee of the rate on any specific future date. What is structural is the discipline: the bands are published, the round-trip is on the page, the second-opinion path is available, and the brief names the buyback counterparties before any metal is acquired.
Published bands at recent ranges:
- 1kg gold barsSpot − 0.50% to 0.75%
- 100g gold barsSpot − 0.75% to 1.00%
- 400 ozt Good Delivery goldSpot − 0.30% to 0.50%
- 1000 ozt Good Delivery silverSpot − 1.50% to 2.20%
- Sovereign bullion coinageQuoted at sale
Bands move with market conditions. The actual figure firms at the time of sale against the then-current LBMA fix. For full pricing context (buy bands, vaulting, worked examples at $500K / $1.25M / $5M+), see /pricing.
The same documentation chain that established acquisition closes the sale.
Every sale event produces its own documentation, integrated into the client’s existing engagement file. The discipline is to keep the buy-side and sell-side records together, in one file, under one set of reference numbers, so that an executor, a successor trustee, a CPA at tax time, or an attorney at a future event can read the position end-to-end.
- §01Sale instruction
The client's written instruction to the Office: which line items to sell, in what order, against what counterparty (or routed through the second-opinion path), at what timing parameters. The instruction is filed alongside the original brief.
- §02Counterparty quote(s)
The buyback quote from the primary counterparty and, where the second-opinion path is exercised, the independent third-party quote. Both quotes are time-stamped against the LBMA fix at quote.
- §03Settlement record
The settlement details: counterparty wire receipt, final spread realized, settlement date, and reconciliation against the depository's holdings statement update.
- §04Updated holdings statement
The depository re-issues the holdings statement reflecting the post-sale composition of the reserve. The statement names the bars or lots that left the holdings and the bars or lots remaining.
- §05Tax record
A summary suitable for the client's CPA: the cost basis from the original acquisition (carried in the engagement file), the sale price, the realized gain or loss, the holding period, and any tax-character considerations specific to physical precious metals (e.g., the collectibles tax rate on long-term capital gains for individuals; the operating-entity treatment for LLCs; the tax-deferred treatment inside an IRA wrapper). The Office is not a tax adviser; the record is for the CPA's use.
- §06Annual review note
The annual review document is updated to reflect the sale and the post-sale reserve composition. The review is the running document that ties the engagement together over multi-year horizons.
Two operational shapes. Two different timelines.
Partial drawdown. A specific sub-set of holdings is liquidated against a defined dollar need. The brief specifies the sequence (typically smaller-lot product first — sovereign coinage, 100g bars, kilo bars before Good Delivery format, because smaller lots give precise dollar-amount control and Good Delivery bars carry the tightest spread for the inverse reason). Operational timeline at Strategic and Private Reserve scale is typically 5–15 business days from sale instruction to client cash, depending on counterparty cadence and settlement banking.
Full liquidation. The entire position is liquidated. At Strategic Reserve and Private Reserve scale, this typically runs 2–6 weeks; at Family Reserve scale it can run 4–12 weeks depending on format mix and market conditions, with the largest Good Delivery bars sometimes scheduled across a multi-day disposition window to clear at the tightest spread. The brief flags the expected timeline at engagement; the actual cadence at full liquidation is a working session between the client and the Office at the time.
Both shapes are addressed in §07 of the brief at engagement, named for the household’s specific situation. The default is partial-drawdown contemplation; full-liquidation planning is added when the household’s situation specifically warrants it (planned business exit, executor anticipation, post-divorce wind-down).
The plan to sell is written before the plan to buy.
§07 of the brief. Written before the engagement is signed.
The reviewed Physical Reserve Strategy Brief contains an explicit Exit Posture section (§07) addressing every element on this page for the specific engagement: the natural exit shapes the household expects, the primary and secondary buyback counterparties, the second-opinion path, the expected sell-side spread bands by format, the documentation produced at sale, the partial-drawdown sequencing, the full-liquidation timeline if relevant, and the open questions the brief flags for resolution before the engagement begins.
This page is the public reference; §07 of the brief is the engagement- specific application. Both are designed to be read by the client’s attorney, CPA, family-office staff, or trustee independently and arrive at the same answer.