Many banks will have a supply. And if you want to shop around, go to your local jewellery store, they often have a stash of gold bars in their vaults
I don't know why anyone would stash gold in case of armageddon. Who would accept gold in such a situation? To me food, water, medicine and most importantly weapons will be what matters. Maybe your definition of armageddon is different from mine though. Google TEOTWAWKI for more info.
How Do I Secure Physical Gold? Often new gold investors are worried about having any gold at home. They fear that thieves will come and liberate their gold from them. While theft is definitely a small risk, it can almost be eliminated by taking two easy steps. First, if you are buying gold for investment reasons, tell absolutely no one about your purchase. Donât tell your friends, donât tell your neighbors, donât tell your co-workers, donât tell your kids, just be quiet about it. You could live in the most run-down shack in town and have $1m worth of gold sitting in your basement and no one outside would have a clue unless you told them about your gold investment. 95% of the chance of theft can be eliminated if you are very subtle and discreet and keep your investment absolutely private http://www.zealllc.com/2002/gold101.htm
If you are going to store precious metals, hard currency, etc, then you should have a high quality safe installed, along with a top notch security system.
For hitech thieves these type of safe will be a piece of cake. what u need is a pot of clay, that will go undetected as a useless pot, and u can bury that in your backyard, or just put it in basement and pour some concrete on the pot.
You should try one of the bullion banks and see what they say - usually they have tonnes of 'em and are happy to sell - Chase, Soveriegn Bank, maybe BofA. If you need a safe, buy a used, fire-proof one - they weigh about 500-600 pounds, will withstand fire etc and it takes 3 or 4 men to move one cause they're small and have no handles.
Armageddon in this case is probably the US dollar crashing (hyper inflation, wheelbarrows of money needed to buy anything). Or perhaps some very strict exchange controls and/or government seizures, bank runs, etc. The kinds of things you read about in far off 3rd world countries. In a nuclear/end of the world armageddon, I'd rather own canned food, water, first aid kit, a radiation suit, an underground shelter, and a few weapons No time for gold.....
I think that many people choose to disregard the kind of "event risk" which is associated with holding USD denominated assets right now. It seems that for some the mentality is "so what if USD lost another -50% of its value? Some tourists would cancel their trips abroad" (quoted from letter copied below). If one agrees that with this thinking, then surely there's no reason to hedge USD exposure. I'll copy here a letter from StLouis's Fed Research Officer Mr Neely of 2 weeks ago: