How much is too much humidity? Tips for cutting down humidity...?

We have a Liberty Lincoln fire safe, rated at 90 minutes...bought years ago before we collected coins....but we keep our coins in there as well now.

We have a dry rod at the bottom of the safe, a couple containers of Dry-z-Air, and a couple of the Eva-Dry E-500s as well, and it still reads 50% humidity with the humidity gauge we put in there. We also keep all of the coins in Intercept boxes.

So far I have not seen adverse issues resulting, but it's only been a few years.
Is 50% humidity too much? Should we replace the dry rod with a Peet air-circulating dehumidifier? Has anyone on the forum tried them both and have an opinion on that?

I understand that fire safes do tend to collect humidity, so I'd rather be safe (no pun intended) than sorry...I am wondering if keeping them in there is just a bad idea...maybe put them in a safety deposit box? But that's no fun, because you couldn't easily take them out to enjoy looking at them.

Thoughts?

 

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I believe I would have to question the integrity of that gauge. With all the precautionary steps you have taken it seems hard to believe you are still holding that much moisture.

 

Not all safes are good for storing coins....Gun safes aren't, does your safe have carpet or some sort of liner?Or is it just steel inside?
You may want to sell your safe and research another that best serves your needs...or buy another..As if the safe has tnat much condensation inside I'm sure it isn't going to protect your coin fully.
As for a safety deposit box true your coins are not in hand....but you can always image them and look or display your images.
Most banks safety deposit boxes are in a control environment.

 

Ugh. Thanks for the responses...not what I wanted to hear! I believe it is lined, but it's bolted to the concrete floor in our garage. Before we go down the road to getting a different safe...which humidity gauge do you all use that is felt to be the most accurate? Maybe we should try another.

And would the Peet air-circulating dehumidifier be better than the dry rod?

 

With dri-z-air you shouldn't have that much humidity. Gauge problems?

 

Is the garage temp controled?

 

That is your problem. Move it inside.

 

There's no room to put it inside the house. It is an attached garage (and not a carport), but not temperature controlled. It does stay warmer than outside, but it definitely is not as warm as inside the house. But it typically doesn't drop much below 40s in the winter time outside here...sometimes, but not like Minnesota or other states that get really cold winters.

 

What kind of fire insulating material is used in that safe?

If you can't control the humidity inside the safe I'm going to guess it's not very air tight either. Meaning with an open seam or something there's no way you will be able to control the interior temperature or humidity. The only way is to work on sealing the safe, or have a smaller safe inside that you can have seals on and make that air tight.

With the large temp and humidity variance throughout the years if it is metal with basic sheet rock drywall material I'd be curious if there's also any mold in there from over the years that you can't see because it's between layers of metal which may not be sealed from the environment.

edit: per their website it appears to use drywall type board, layers of them.


I've resisted putting anything in my garage which is separate and not temperature controlled. My old garage was connected with an area that was temp controlled and that worked fine.

I put my coins in airtight tupper ware type containers with a anti-tarnish strip and a small rechargeable packet. Those are in a safe which also has a larger anti-humidity unit and is fairly airtight .. until I open it of course.

 

I use a warming rod (not sure what it's officially called) that is like 10 watts. Supposed to keep the temperature slightly warmer than the outside and hence reduce humidity. Seems to work well enough.

 

There are a few things a person needs to do with a new safe before you start using it. Once it is in place you need to track the temperature and humidity swings inside the safe and the room you have it in. There are gadgets that make this easy.
You have to have a starting point to understand what you are dealing with.

 

We've had this safe for a few years now. I never worried about the coins (too much) until I started reading the articles on this forum. Now I see I need to try a few other things, and be prepared to just get a safety deposit box if needed. Much cheaper to do that than to heat the garage...

 

In your situation , here is what I would do. Take your coins and put them in the house in an area that has the lowest humidity and while they come into balance take enough zip lock bags for the coins in also and put your coins safely into the bags in a way you want them stored. Squeeze all air out and seal them. Take some bright newish zinc cents and scratch and shine them with a wire brush of scrubber and add them into a second zip lock bag , and then insert your first sealed bag and then zip lock the second and put them into the safe with the scratched cents visible. and close the safe. Every so often open the safe and look at the cents. If they are bright and shine, the other coins are as safe as can be. If they are corroding , check for a bad seal and replace or heck, put them into a 3rd bag ( they are cheap compared to a safe or SDB), but I would bet they will stay bright as 2 zip locks give a lot of protection. My 99 cent store even has 2 1/2 gallon size and they work fine for stashes. Jim

 

Thanks desertgem. I might just give that a try. Makes sense.

Sorry for the late reply...This year has been crazy with the overtime. When I finally get off my work computer, it's time for exercising, eating or bed...

Oh well, it's better than the alternative!

 

Hey, just remember. Be good and don't forget to dance for the POSSIBLE 2% at the end of the year.

 

BTW, also check the Intercept Box periodically. I had one and had some silver bullion in non-PVC flips inside the box. A few of the bullion pieces started toning/tarnishing. Not all of them, just a few. I've since put all of my bullion in air tite capsules (not necessarily that brand, but you get the point).

 

Before I saw this thread I ordered an "empty" Silver American Eagle Green Monster Box and Silica Gel Packets 2"x2". My collection is very small at this point but was thinking of the larger 450 gram silica gel for my safe.
Thoughts ?

 

As mentioned by others, just make sure the temperature of the area you store the coins is consistent. It doesn't need to be exact, just no huge temperature swings. I also use "sacrificial" copper cents. I put them in a small bowl and monitor them for corrosion. If your safe is large, I recommend using the larger silica gel packs that you can reactivate.

 

I do...a couple of months ago, I found one of my buffalo nickels that was in a slab had a couple of spots on it. However for all I know, they were there before I bought it because I only started really scrutinizing my coins a couple of months ago (little ashamed to admit...). Oh well, it's how we learn, right?