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<p>[QUOTE="Publius2, post: 5567173, member: 105571"]You got some very good and detailed information about safes. Having done my own research a couple of years ago prior to purchase, here's what I concluded about safes:</p><p><br /></p><p>1) A safe is a magnet for thieves. If they can see it, they will attempt to open or remove it. Having a safe is a temptation to lull you into thinking you've protected your asset. One strategy is to buy a safe for the burglars and then store your coins inside your mattress.</p><p>2) If you cannot hide your safe, then see #1. And hiding is much more difficult than you might think. Give it the old mental exercise.</p><p>3) No visitor to your home/apartment should be able to ever see your safe. These observers will inevitably tell someone, who tells someone else and the next thing you have is a burglary/home invasion. This has happened to more than one friend with a gun safe. In one friend's case, the loose lips belonged to his daughter, to her boyfriend, to his friends and then came the home invasion, pistol-whipping, etc. Fortunately no loss of life. Solidly upper middle-class family in a higher-income neighborhood.</p><p>4) Going along with #3 is the axiom "Never, ever, ever tell anyone you have a safe (or a gun, or jewelry, or a coin collection, or cash).</p><p>5) Decide what you want a safe to do for you. If it is fire protection, then buy the safe for that and don't worry about burglary ratings. If protection against burglars, then buy for that and make sure you can securely bolt down the safe itself and hide/disguise it. There are good safes that combine fire and burglary protection. If you are gone from home all day (like at your job) or extended periods (like business trips), you should probably not use a safe but rather a SDB. This is particularly true if access to your home is not secure such as if you rent and your landlord or his contractors have the right to enter your apartment/house. </p><p>6) The terms "good safe" and "cheap safe" are mutually exclusive. But it is also possible to buy a bad safe (defined as one that doesn't meet your needs) that is also expensive.</p><p>7) All good safes that have a reasonable internal size to them are heavy. If you plan to put it on anything other than a concrete slab floor, make sure you are structurally sound. That basically means all modern houses and apartments with wooden floors are verboten.</p><p>8) Do not try to use a gun safe for your coins. Only the very best and most expensive gun safes have any utility for storing coins, except to keep your children from spending them at the candy store! There are videos on the better gun safe manufacturers' websites showing how quickly and easily thieves can enter the typical gun safe. Scary! Plus, I think it is a spectacularly bad idea to keep quantities of guns/ammunition in the same enclosed space with coins. Guns and stocks are cleaned with chemicals and oiled with various organic and non-organic lubricants. Ammunition is full of nitrates which while semi-hermetic will still outgas in a safe over time.</p><p>9) To contradict my advice in #8, I think it is a good idea to keep a loaded pistol in your coin safe, preferably something with a partially polymer frame like a Glock or a small 0.380 polymer so you don't have to use but just a little bit of synthetic lube. The amount of ammo is small enough that you probably don't have to worry much about outgassing. The monthly opening to recharge your dessicant packs will air things out adequately.</p><p>10) Traditional vs. electronic locks: You don't have to worry about batteries, they give you an audible alert when they get low and if they go dead, the non-voltatile memory retains your code until you put in new batteries. Electronic locks will perish in a fire. At least theoretically a traditional tumbler lock should survive. But most fires are so intense and long-lasting that even an all-metal tumbler can fail. And with modern cost-cutting, there could easily be non-metallic parts of traditional tumbler locks. Figure that in a house fire, you will need to cut your goods out of the safe no matter what.</p><p>11) I strongly suggest moisture control within your safe. You can use a heater rod which will change the relative humidity but will not remove moisture (check your psychrometric chart), light bulbs, single-use adsorbent dessicants, throw-away absorption dessicants, rechargeable absorption dessicants. Among these I recommend the latter; they are inexpensive, reliable, perform well and have none of the disadvantages that pertain to the other options.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Publius2, post: 5567173, member: 105571"]You got some very good and detailed information about safes. Having done my own research a couple of years ago prior to purchase, here's what I concluded about safes: 1) A safe is a magnet for thieves. If they can see it, they will attempt to open or remove it. Having a safe is a temptation to lull you into thinking you've protected your asset. One strategy is to buy a safe for the burglars and then store your coins inside your mattress. 2) If you cannot hide your safe, then see #1. And hiding is much more difficult than you might think. Give it the old mental exercise. 3) No visitor to your home/apartment should be able to ever see your safe. These observers will inevitably tell someone, who tells someone else and the next thing you have is a burglary/home invasion. This has happened to more than one friend with a gun safe. In one friend's case, the loose lips belonged to his daughter, to her boyfriend, to his friends and then came the home invasion, pistol-whipping, etc. Fortunately no loss of life. Solidly upper middle-class family in a higher-income neighborhood. 4) Going along with #3 is the axiom "Never, ever, ever tell anyone you have a safe (or a gun, or jewelry, or a coin collection, or cash). 5) Decide what you want a safe to do for you. If it is fire protection, then buy the safe for that and don't worry about burglary ratings. If protection against burglars, then buy for that and make sure you can securely bolt down the safe itself and hide/disguise it. There are good safes that combine fire and burglary protection. If you are gone from home all day (like at your job) or extended periods (like business trips), you should probably not use a safe but rather a SDB. This is particularly true if access to your home is not secure such as if you rent and your landlord or his contractors have the right to enter your apartment/house. 6) The terms "good safe" and "cheap safe" are mutually exclusive. But it is also possible to buy a bad safe (defined as one that doesn't meet your needs) that is also expensive. 7) All good safes that have a reasonable internal size to them are heavy. If you plan to put it on anything other than a concrete slab floor, make sure you are structurally sound. That basically means all modern houses and apartments with wooden floors are verboten. 8) Do not try to use a gun safe for your coins. Only the very best and most expensive gun safes have any utility for storing coins, except to keep your children from spending them at the candy store! There are videos on the better gun safe manufacturers' websites showing how quickly and easily thieves can enter the typical gun safe. Scary! Plus, I think it is a spectacularly bad idea to keep quantities of guns/ammunition in the same enclosed space with coins. Guns and stocks are cleaned with chemicals and oiled with various organic and non-organic lubricants. Ammunition is full of nitrates which while semi-hermetic will still outgas in a safe over time. 9) To contradict my advice in #8, I think it is a good idea to keep a loaded pistol in your coin safe, preferably something with a partially polymer frame like a Glock or a small 0.380 polymer so you don't have to use but just a little bit of synthetic lube. The amount of ammo is small enough that you probably don't have to worry much about outgassing. The monthly opening to recharge your dessicant packs will air things out adequately. 10) Traditional vs. electronic locks: You don't have to worry about batteries, they give you an audible alert when they get low and if they go dead, the non-voltatile memory retains your code until you put in new batteries. Electronic locks will perish in a fire. At least theoretically a traditional tumbler lock should survive. But most fires are so intense and long-lasting that even an all-metal tumbler can fail. And with modern cost-cutting, there could easily be non-metallic parts of traditional tumbler locks. Figure that in a house fire, you will need to cut your goods out of the safe no matter what. 11) I strongly suggest moisture control within your safe. You can use a heater rod which will change the relative humidity but will not remove moisture (check your psychrometric chart), light bulbs, single-use adsorbent dessicants, throw-away absorption dessicants, rechargeable absorption dessicants. Among these I recommend the latter; they are inexpensive, reliable, perform well and have none of the disadvantages that pertain to the other options.[/QUOTE]
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