Keep Your Valuables Protected

Fort Knox. Vatican cameos. James Bond.

Hmmmm. Wondering why we’ve bundled a bank, a line from Sherlock Holmes, and a spy together? If you guessed they all have something to do with safes, you’d be right. We should also add Johnny Locksmith: if you want secured safes, only a professional locksmith can help you. 

Safes bring a certain amount of glamor and intrigue with them, partly due to the movie and cultural references such as these. You know, images abound of thieves with a stethoscope, black leather gloves, and black stocking caps.

However, safes in real life usually aren’t cracked that way. Most of the time, when a safe is cracked, it’s not even cracked on-site. And the reference to Fort Knox in some ways represents the real value of a safe. While the safe door and construction provide much of the deterrent for thieves, it’s positioning and location that really do the trick.

A Fun Fact About Safes…

The safe at Fort Knox is 22 tons. To open it requires about a zillion people, all of whom who only know part of the code to open it. And just to make sure that you really have to work hard, you have to get through the smaller vaults inside the vaults and about 30K members of the military to grab your loot.

The Real Scoop on Everyday Safes

It is true that most burglars don’t crack a safe in the home or office. Instead, they usually steal it and crack it where they can do so at their leisure in a manner of speaking. Some people think that chaining the safe to the ground will prevent this, but all this usually does is give the thief a little leverage. Chain plus crowbar plus thief equals open safe.

Safes can also be sliced open. That said, the best-constructed safes are those that are constructed of materials from earth’s little furnace. In other words, perlite, the stuff which volcanoes spew out is one of the materials that safes are made from. This material makes them more fire resistant.

Quality materials also account for why some safes are so expensive. However, expensive also means better when it comes to safes. Although any material ultimately can be cut through, even steel or diamonds, it is only the most serious thief who can get through all those materials.

So What Do You Do?

Truth be told, a better option is high-quality safe plus great hiding place equals the most secure safes. Generally speaking, if a thief has to look really hard for your safe, that’s often enough to stop him/her.

These are usually wall and floor safes. The safe in the Sherlock reference comes from the modern TV show. That was a wall safe behind a mirror. These tend to be lighter due to being suspended in the wall. Floor safes can be heavier, again due to their location.

The most secure safes are also the ones that are mostly inaccessible. A partially buried safe presents the best option for safety, but maybe the worst one for accessibility for you. That’s not a bad thing. However, if you need to have ready access to your safe, burying it might not be the best option.

Safes Fun Fact 2…

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault takes floor safes to a whole new level. This vault lies beneath the ground, almost 400 feet underground to be exact. It also comes with extra inaccessibility features like being on an island, Spitsbergen, and being under the frozen north. The actual North Pole is some 600-ish miles from it. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that even the heartiest of crooks would have to row a very long way through some very cold ocean to reach it. It definitely wins for inaccessibility.

Final Thoughts

If you want to keep the valuables in your safe, well, safe, then you need to do a couple of things. You need to start with a well-built safe. Safes constructed of volcanic glass are good options. You also need to make sure that you make it really difficult to find. Finally, you need to realize that the buried safe may be your best bet of all, but it also may prevent you from accessing it. If you go with this option, make sure that you don’t need to access is often.