Most people who buy gold for an IRA never touch it.
They buy it, a vault holds it, statements arrive, and one day it gets sold for cash. The metal stays a concept the whole time.
Which is a little strange, when you think about it. They bought physical gold specifically because it was physical, and then never saw it.
There is another way out. You can have the gold itself shipped to you.
It is called an in-kind distribution, it is completely legal, and it solves a problem that selling does not. It also creates two problems that selling does not, and one of them arrives in a cardboard box at your front door.
Here is exactly how it works.