How it works · the full member flow
What paying for membership
actually delivers.
Six ordered steps, the same app-based flow a new member follows after choosing a tier and reviewing a coin through the tray. The vault does the heavy lifting; the page below names the moving pieces in the order they happen — tier selection, gated browsing, cert verification, scarcity-priced purchase, post-sale custody, and an optional buyback — so a prospect can read it once and decide how to begin online.
STEP 01 · Pick a tier
Pick a tier from the membership table.
Three tiers share one custody standard — Standard ($29.95 / month), Plus ($49.95 / month), and Elite ($99.00 / month) — and the table on /pricing lays out which monthly cap, shipping path, and silver bonus each one carries. The rest (White Horse Vault owns the two Texas vaults used for custody; they are two of the largest vaults in Texas, the cert-verification workflow, and the buyback quote against the morning spot) is the same floor underneath all three.
New here? Compare the table — the deep-link /membership?tier=<id>#signup drops you straight into the signup form pre-set for Standard, Plus, or Elite.
STEP 02 · Browse the gated inventory
Browse the gated inventory tray.
Active members step through a brass membership gate into /inventory — a curated tray of NGC- and PCGS-graded American Eagles with the published scarcity premium for each cert front-and-center. The gate itself is not a paywall: it’s a roster check that reads the same status === ‘active’ row the per-SKU checkout route already verifies, so the tray only ever renders for an active subscription.
Not yet a member? The gate panel offers Apply for membership or Request an invitation right at the door — no “Contact us for access” wall.
STEP 03 · Verify & pull a population report
Verify the NGC / PCGS holder and pull a population report.
Before you reserve, the coin’s per-SKU detail page surfaces the cert number and grade and links directly into the two grading services we cross-check every piece against. The NGC cert lookup URL is https://www.ngccoin.com/certlookup/{certNumber}/ and the PCGS record URL is https://www.pcgs.com/cert/{certNumber}/{grade} — both open in a new tab.
The matched inventory SKU carries the published NGC Pop. report / PCGS Pop. reportrank for the holder — the same fewer-than-this rarity figure the published scarcity premium already prices against. Cross-checking the cert is a 30-second habit; the matched population report is how a member knows they’re buying the grade the SKU claims.
STEP 04 · Purchase at live spot + scarcity premium
Purchase at live spot plus the true scarcity premium.
The price printed on the SKU detail page is not the melt price and it is not a round-number markup. It is a per-oz scarcity premium for the cert’s grade, holder, and year, layered on top of the live spot and published in the app. The exact line item is:
1 oz: ($2,800.00 spot) + (+$85.00 / oz) = $2,885.00 / oz
1 oz total: ($2,800.00 spot + $85.00) × 1 = $2,885.00
The gold and silver scarcity premiums are a per-oz add-on for the cert’s grade, holder, and year — not a melt-price multiplier. The total stays honest because the spot re-pulls every morning and the premium is published, not negotiated.
STEP 05 · Vault OR registered next-day shipping
Choose insured vault storage or registered next-day shipping.
Once the sale clears, the coin has two custody paths. Tier rules and shippingLabel data below are read from TIERS so the text on this page cannot drift from the tier-comparison table:
Vault storage · all tiers
Hold stays in segregated custody.
White Horse Vault owns the two Texas vaults used for custody; they are two of the largest vaults in Texas. The piece sits in segregated custody there. Review the same SKU, cert record, and custody details in the app; there is no storefront inspection step. Default shipping on Standard and Plus tiers (Free standard shipping) stays on the option a member upgrades to on Elite anyway.
Registered next-day shipping · Elite only
Piece leaves the vault on registered mail.
Elite tier ships under registered + insured mail with full insurance tied to the coin’s scarcity-priced value (Free registered + insured shipping). One round-trip per month — outbound to you, return to the vault, or direct ship. Track is logged and the same SKU re-enters custody on return.
Compare the two custody paths on /membership — the Elite column is the one that flips the shipping path from vault-default to registered-default.
STEP 06 · Optional buyback
Optional buyback, priced by the same formula in reverse.
Members can initiate a buyback online at any time. The buyback quote uses the same scarcity-pricing formula in mirror — spot minus the published premium, multiplied by weight — re-pulled against the morning spot the same way the original purchase price was:
offer = (spot × weight) − (premium × weight)
example: ($2,800.00 × 1) − ($85.00 × 1) = $2,715.00
Run a live quote on /buyback — the form returns the offer against the current spot within seconds. For the precise terms (mint-state floor, holder rules, payment window) see /faq#buyback-terms.
Start online
Review the full member flow online before you wire a single dollar.
The signup form runs the full six-step sequence end-to-end — tier picker, Stripe Checkout, gated inventory, cert verify, buyback. Pick up a tier on /membership, or request an invitation and the team replies online within five business days.