I'M ONE OF THE FEW people in America who still rents a safety deposit box. While it might seem like a useless appendage in an age of digitized everything, there are few things as reassuring as owning your own little piece of security deep in the heart of a major FDIC-insured bank. Safety deposit boxes are one of the best, yet surprisingly underused, services a good bank can provide: the ability to protect your tangible assets.

Why would you need a safety deposit box? As I wrote a few weeks back, when it comes to money, I tend to be a professional obsessive compulsive. That compulsiveness drives me to protect my holdings like a lioness guards her young. And I'm glad for that, because, while geopolitical news gets increasingly grim, I'm sleeping like a baby these days.

My sleep aid comes in the form of a safety deposit box full of gold bars located inside one of Chicago's biggest banks. More than Melatonin, Nyquil or a cheap bottle of wine, gold relaxes me. It's my worrying, bankruptcy, default, depression, up-all-night, frugality, so-I-can-rest medicine. When I said I was building an ark, I meant it.

Do I love my family? Yes. Do I think relationships are important? Naturally. Is there more to life than making money? Of course. All that being said, I can promise you that, in a crisis situation — a real crisis — it's cash that counts. And although most of us consider U.S. currency to be the best form of wealth, in a crisis situation, most of the world is more likely to accept gold than the greenback. Just ask any citizen of Argentina or Japan.

As we wrote a few months back, gold is the most widely quoted and internationally recognized form of wealth in the history of the world. If you're objective is to save and protect your assets, it doesn't get any more old school than gold.

Moreover, despite the lingering and common misconception to the contrary, even among seasoned investment professionals, the truth is that a higher gold price doesn't need to be accompanied by a massive global catastrophe. Think simple supply and demand: As we first wrote in the wake of Sept. 11, gold is astonishingly unrenowned. It wouldn't take a terrorist attack, but simply a small shift in investor sentiment to send literally billions of dollars moving into gold.

International appeal is just one of gold's attractions. For me, one of the best things about owning gold bullion is that people have a tendency to save it. Think about it: Most people's wealth consists of numbers on a screen. But gold must be looked after. It's beautiful, dense and cumbersome. Gold requires that you take care of it — and in an age when millions can me moved with a mouse click, there's something to be said for an asset that you can touch, hold and, best of all, protect.

Gold isn't my only asset — but it is a major one. The truth is, we're all in it for the long haul — but we sure don't need to be invested 100% in stocks. When it comes to hard-core savings, there's nothing more "long haul" than gold. If the last thing a person sells is his house, the second-to-last thing he sells is his gold.

As longtime readers know, gold has been on my radar screen for many years, going back to my days as a columnist for other publications in the 1990s. Like any admitted gold bug, I can always rattle off a laundry list of reasons why I'm bullish on gold. The biggest reason I can think of, however, is that gold is strong right now. The trend is up. And as much as we sometimes hate to admit it, trends tend to persist over time.

So I'm not going to try to convince you that the gold rally is for real. Heck, if none of the preceding arguments have worked, it's only higher prices that will finally sway the skeptics. But if you're sold on the idea of a gold allocation to your portfolio, allow me to outline a few of the many options for adding some exposure.

Although my fund does own a few gold stocks, my preferred method for "going for the gold" is to buy the metal itself, through listed futures and physical one-ounce gold bars. I prefer the one-ounce Credit Suisse bars, which come factory-sealed in durable, sleek, wallet-sized "Ignotcards." While the bars tend to trade at a slight premium to Kruggurands or other one-ounce gold pieces, I rather like Credit Suisse's ingenious storage mechanism and Swiss affiliation. A number of reputable dealers, both online and off, offer these bars. But when it comes to pricing, don't count on getting too much of a bargain. Gold isn't something people can afford to sell at a loss for too long. If someone is selling you gold at a major discount, you've got to be at least a little suspicious why.

Source: Onlygold.com

For more sophisticated investors, gold futures still offer the best bang for your buck. And although Comex contracts are the world's most liquid, small speculators might want to check out the electronically traded "mini" contracts offered by the Chicago Board of Trade.

Whether you're an obsessive saver or a highly active trader, squirreling away gold isn't merely the stuff of black-and-white spy movies. And while it's natural to wonder if you've already missed the boat, in the final analysis, the real move probably hasn't yet been made.

Jonathan Hoenig is portfolio manager at Capitalistpig Asset Management, a Chicago-based hedge fund.