American Alternative Assets Review

By Harry's Coins Editorial. Last reviewed July 2026. All facts about American Alternative Assets were verified against captured company pages on July 4, 2026.

Who American Alternative Assets is

American Alternative Assets is a small, privately owned precious metals dealer that markets self-directed retirement accounts holding physical gold and silver. Its identity on paper is thin but consistent: a Delaware limited liability company operating from Woodland Hills, California, with a single named vault partner in Delaware.

The About page describes the firm as a preferred precious metals dealer that helps clients place retirement funds into a Precious Metals IRA (source: americanalternativeassets.com/about-us/, checked July 4, 2026). The same page says 30 percent of new business arrives through referrals from existing customers, and that the firm holds A+ ratings with the Better Business Bureau and with the National Ethics Association.

The public face of the company is a spokesperson named Shanon Davis. He appears on segments identified on the home page as The Victor Davis Hanson Show, Just the News, and Connecting America (source: americanalternativeassets.com home page, checked July 4, 2026). Those segments are the only named third-party media the captured site links to for public visibility.

The company is roughly four years old as an internet-visible business. The oldest Wayback Machine capture of the americanalternativeassets.com domain is dated July 22, 2022, and the copyright line on captured pages reads 2022 to 2026 (source: web.archive.org CDX API for americanalternativeassets.com, checked July 4, 2026). No older business identity is disclosed on the captured pages.

What the captured pages actually disclose

We fetched six pages of americanalternativeassets.com on July 4, 2026 with a plain browser user agent: the home page, the about page, the reviews page, the Delaware Depository page, the privacy policy, and the terms and conditions page. The chart below sorts what those captured pages publish into two categories.

The corporate identity side is decent for a firm of this size. The captured pages state the legal entity, the office address, the customer service phone, and one named depository partner. That is four of the six identity items we count on any dealer we review.

The cost side is empty. The captured pages contain marketing pages, several free calculators, and a testimonial reel. No page publishes a specific dollar figure for a Precious Metals IRA setup fee, an annual custodian fee, a depository storage fee, an account minimum, a dealer spread on a specific coin, or a buyback pricing rule. That is zero of six on the fee inventory.

What the fee picture looks like

A Precious Metals IRA usually carries six recurring cost lines. Because American Alternative Assets does not publish a public schedule for any of them, a prospective buyer has to ask for each figure in writing before signing paperwork. The table below sets out the six lines, the status on the captured pages, and what you can reasonably ask the salesperson.

To see how any combination of these fees eats into a Precious Metals IRA over time, use the fee-drag tool below. Input the numbers your salesperson gives you in writing; do not accept a phone quote without a follow-up email that repeats the same figures.

Where the metal would sit

The captured Delaware Depository page names Wilmington-based Delaware Depository as the storage facility used for American Alternative Assets IRA holdings (source: americanalternativeassets.com/delaware-depository/, checked July 4, 2026). The page describes the vault as CME-licensed, IRS-approved for self-directed IRA metals, and covered by a $1 billion all-risk insurance policy underwritten by Lloyd's of London.

Delaware Depository is a real facility that has stored precious metals since 1999, and it is used by many dealers in the industry. It is not a proprietary partnership: any Precious Metals IRA custodian can direct metals to Delaware Depository if a customer asks.

What the captured pages do not name is the trust company that would actually hold the retirement account. Every self-directed IRA needs a licensed custodian to accept contributions, rollovers, and distributions on behalf of the account owner. American Alternative Assets does not disclose which custodian it prefers, which is a piece of information a serious buyer should request before funding an account.

Trust claims the site makes

The About page states that American Alternative Assets holds an A+ rating and accreditation with the Better Business Bureau and with the National Ethics Association (source: americanalternativeassets.com/about-us/, checked July 4, 2026). The Reviews page repeats the A+ BBB claim and adds a 5-star rating on Trustpilot backed by thousands of reviews.

Two verification limits apply. First, the BBB profile page for American Alternative Assets could not be directly retrieved from our server due to a Cloudflare challenge. A Texas buyer should visit bbb.org, search the company name, and read the current rating and complaint history on the live BBB profile before signing paperwork. Second, testimonial quotes on the home page are attributed to first-name and last-initial customers and cannot be independently verified from the captured pages.

Regulatory footprint is thin, which is normal for a precious metals dealer that is not a registered investment adviser. A search of SEC EDGAR full-text on July 4, 2026 for the exact phrase American Alternative Assets returned zero filings (source: efts.sec.gov/LATEST/search-index, checked July 4, 2026). That result places the company outside the SEC-registered adviser and broker-dealer perimeter. SEC EDGAR is not the place to look up a public track record for this dealer.

How American Alternative Assets serves Texas investors

American Alternative Assets is a national mail-order dealer with a single office in California and a single storage partner in Delaware. There is no Texas office and no Texas Bullion Depository partnership disclosed on any captured page. A Texas retirement saver would receive the same service any other United States resident receives, which is a fully remote onboarding by phone and email.

Two Texas-specific facts still matter for a resident of Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, or any other Texas city. The first is state income tax. Texas has no individual state income tax. Distributions from a Precious Metals IRA are therefore taxed only at the federal level for a Texas resident (source: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, checked July 2026).

The second is depository geography. If a Texas buyer wants metals stored inside Texas, the state operates a public Texas Bullion Depository in Leander that some other dealers list as a storage option. American Alternative Assets does not list it. A Texas buyer who wants Texas-based storage should ask American Alternative Assets in writing whether a non-Delaware option is available and, if not, treat that as a factor when comparing dealers.

No page on americanalternativeassets.com published on the captured date mentions Texas at a policy level: no Texas licensing note, no Texas depository partnership, no Texas customer service line. Reading the site as a Texas buyer, the plain interpretation is that the company treats a Texas resident exactly the way it treats a California, Florida, or Ohio resident.

How to open an account with a dealer of this profile

The site does not publish a full step-by-step onboarding flow, so the sequence below reflects how any self-directed Precious Metals IRA typically opens with a dealer of this size. Follow it in order and keep every quoted number in writing before you fund the account.

1. Read the About and Terms pages on americanalternativeassets.com yourself, then note the legal entity, the office address, and the phone number so you can confirm you are speaking to the real company.
2. Verify the BBB profile on bbb.org for the exact legal name American Alternative Assets, LLC, and read the current rating, accreditation status, and complaint history rather than relying on the company's own claim.
3. Call the published phone number, ask for the named self-directed IRA custodian used for new accounts, and confirm the custodian is listed by the IRS as an approved nonbank trustee.
4. Request a written fee schedule that quotes the account setup fee, the annual custodian fee, the depository storage fee, the account minimum, and the dealer spread on the specific coins offered.
5. Confirm in writing that Delaware Depository is the storage location, that segregated storage is available, and that the storage fee quoted matches what Delaware Depository publishes.
6. Ask for the buyback pricing rule the dealer will use if you sell metals back in the future, and get the rule as a written formula rather than a verbal promise.
7. Only after you have the written schedule and the buyback rule, sign the custodian and dealer paperwork, and initiate a direct trustee-to-trustee rollover from your existing IRA or 401(k).

Worked example: a Texas rollover

Balanced pros and cons

When this dealer is a bad idea for you

Frequently asked questions