SD-IRA vs. Traditional Custodian for Gold Coins - My Experience (Dublin, OH)

• •Figured I'd share my own journey, especially since I went through this exact debate a few years back.
• •After I sold my tech startup back in '19, I was sitting on a decent chunk of change – just under $3 million after taxes and payouts.
• •My financial advisor, bless his heart, was pushing for a heavily diversified paper portfolio.

Okay, so I’ve been seeing a few posts pop up lately comparing self-directed IRAs to a more traditional custodian setup for holding physical gold, specifically coins. Figured I'd share my own journey, especially since I went through this exact debate a few years back.

After I sold my tech startup back in '19, I was sitting on a decent chunk of change – just under $3 million after taxes and payouts. My financial advisor, bless his heart, was pushing for a heavily diversified paper portfolio. But I’d seen enough market volatility to know I wanted a solid bedrock, especially with the inflation fears bubbling up. That's when I started looking HARD at gold, specifically American Gold Eagles and Canadian Maples for my retirement nest egg. The big question was how to hold it within an IRA.

I ended up going with a self-directed IRA custodian that specializes in alternative assets, including physical precious metals. Honestly, the control aspect was huge for me. I wanted to see my gold, know exactly what coins I owned, and even choose my storage facility (a top-tier, non-bank vault, obviously). The thought of my retirement wealth just being a line item on some mega-financial institution's balance sheet, subject to their whims and fees, didn't sit right. It felt too much like the old system I was trying to diversify away from. Yeah, the fees are slightly higher with a SD-IRA and specialized storage, but for a portfolio of my size, it’s a drop in the bucket for the peace of mind. Plus, being able to visit the vault (pre-arranged, of course) and see the physical assets is surprisingly reassuring.

My buddy, who also cashed out from his business around the same time, went the more traditional route, just adding a "gold fund" to his standard brokerage IRA. He thinks I'm crazy for wanting to touch and feel my assets. But after seeing how much value some "gold funds" lost during market downturns when physical demand stayed high, I feel validated. It's not actual gold, it's paper. For those of you holding physical coins in your IRAs, what was your decision-making process between traditional custodians vs. SD-IRA? Any regrets or things you wish you’d known going in?