Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask:

[1] http://www.galmarley.com/framesets/fs_keep_it_safe_faqs.htm

This information is from the founder of BullionVault. I must say I find BV to be more and more impressive, the more I learn about gold and how they structured their business.

BullionVault is a highly superior option to gold ETFs, which are themselves much better than gold futures, and somewhat better than gold e-money, and now I believe this is slightly better than holding gold or silver coins in one’s possession. You can read about all these options on the same site referenced by the link above.

Coins are the most reassuring form of gold ownership, and the risk of theft is low. Before I considered having physical coins in one’s possession as the most desirable form of ownership. However, I now realize that storage of bullion in an appropriate facility outside of one’s country is in fact highly safe, highly liquid and very convenient in case you have to leave the country you are currently living in. The one problem with coins is what happens in the event of your government making gold illegal - the benefit of being able to use coins for everyday expenses becomes diminished.

So a safe approach might be some gold and silver coins, and some BullionVault, then everything else is more or less short-term. If you want to be trading in and out, then vehicles like ETFs and futures are ok. Just be aware that these trading vehicles carry the same inherent risks that endanger the financial system generally. So they might go up in price, but things could get screwy when you were expecting to cash in.