A few security tips for collectors...

Greetings Collectors,

Now that Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is less than a month away. As all of you know, our economy is not in the best of shape and not wanting to cross over into a political rant, all I am going to say is, if current policy remains unchanged, we are all in for alot more of the same, at least until 2010. Having said that, the criminal element still thrives, and I fear, it will grow even stronger. It seems that burglars, pick-pockets and the like pick up the pace around the holidays. We collectors need to pay special attention for there are many who would even kill to get their hands on what we have. I know that if someone wants something bad enough, they can be resorceful enough to get it. But as bleak a picture that I have just portrayed, there are several precautions we all can take to "minimize" the chance of sustaining a loss.

I am sure most of you love your collections just as much as I do and would be devastated to come home to find you had been broken into and your beloved coins were gone. I am constantly thinking of ways to improve in the security area when it comes to my coins. I would like to share some of that with you. Again these are things that I employ, which to some may appear to be "overkill".

The first thing you may want to consider is to "NOT" share the fact that you collect coins at all. It is the hardest part of being a collector, in not being able to "show off" your beautiful coins to others. I can not begin to express the importance of this single thing. The only persons that know I collect coins in the degree that I do is my 81 year old stepfather. My soon to graduate, college age daughter knows I collect but would be "shocked" if she knew the depth of my holdings, coins, jewelry, bullion & other. I have two sons, 14 and 12 and nothing would please me more than to have them pick up this wonderful hobby after I am gone. That said, they know I collect but have never seen any coins worth more than a few dollars. The reason here being, I am not afraid of them stealing any of my coins, but boys (and girls) talk and they like to "brag", and all it would take is for them to tell one "wrong" friend, who in turn, tells someone else, an older brother perhaps, then as usually is the case, my collection is worth several times more than it is and my home is broken into. Of course, as I have shared in the past, I never have but a few pieces at home, and never for more than a couple of days. At that time they are in a department store size safe in a room within a room and in a closet. Without going into the details of the protection around that safe, because I have done so in a previous post, I would find it hard to imagine a person being able to get into that safe and "IF" they did, boy would they be disappointed.

If you do keep your coins at home, do not keep them in a safe unless it is large enough that two big guys with an appliance dolly could not remove it from the home. All any safe smaller than that does is make it easier for a person or persons to get everything you have in "one failed swoop". It would be better if you hid your collection in several locations within your home such as the pockets of a suit coat or some other large garment pockets. If you have an attic, then maybe a box within a box, behind a box. Just use your imagination. There are dozens of locations within your home that would be suitable. Wherever you decide to keep your collection, take pictures of each valuble coin and pictures of rolls, bars or other segments so that you have a precise record of what you have. And it goes without saying, keep your inventory and pictures in a separate location. Lastly, there are several companies that will insure coin collections and an additional policy will most likely be needed as most "homeowners" policies do not cover collections like we have without an additional "Rider". Shop prices with your insurer and other companies that specialize in insuring collectables.

I have gone into detail in previous posts about advantages of simply to "bury" your coins in several sections of six inch diameter plastic pipe, 18-24 inches long with a cap on each end. Be sure you make the pipe long enough so that the contents are "undamaged" when the time comes to saw off one of the end caps. After you have added or removed whatever, simply glue another cap on the end and re-bury. This is a cheap alternative to a home safe. The only drawback is being able to look at your coins on a regular basis. I have several buried at different locations, with detailed maps inserted in my "will" papers. I only use this method for bullion, one and ten oz. bars and rounds and junk silver. Items worth alot of money but items I do not need to look at from time to time. A drawback here is if you forget where you buried the two foot section of pipe. Forget about a metal detector as it will not read the silver or gold inside the thick-walled PVC pipe. If you are thinking that you will get "PVC contamination", you won't. Now if you had a raw 1893-S Morgan dollar or 1916-D Mercury dime or any other raw coin, then there is a possibility, if left buried for dozens of years. Slabbed coins are perfectly safe stored in this fashion, you just would have to go to alot of trouble if you like to look at them often.

My favorite method of storing my coins safely is in a Safe Deposit Box at the local bank. I have four of the largest size they have and when they are full, one man can not lift one without first removing a large portion of the contents. My method to address this drawback is to have, in my case, two of the boxes I do not need to get into or I will say I have only needed to get into them a couple of times in the last five years. I also have my boxes as far off the floor of the bank vault in case of a flood. Now where I live and where my bank is, there is almost a zero chance of flooding "BUT" I, in my "overkill" way of doing things, take it that additional step. I have an additional insurance policy on these bank boxes just in case someone "tunneled in" or in the remote case of an employee doing an "inside job". I have shared this before in an earlier post in that I had a dream one night, actually a "nightmare" when I dreamed there was some kind of major "insurection" and stores and banks were being "looted". I drove as fast as I could to the bank, found the double doors wide open, and the vault room in a mass state of disaray, with boxes opened and papers all over the ground and everything gone. I can still remember that dream and it was the next day after that, when I obtained an insurance policy on those boxes. Again, maybe this is overkill but it makes me sleep well at night.

The last thing I want to mention, and this is the reason I thought of doing this post, some of you suscribe to coin magazines and maybe you get other items from those that send out "mailers" to solicit the selling of gold or platinum and silver. Before you recycle these mags and papers, even envelopes with return addresses from companies like "RARE COIN INVESTMENTS" or "GOLD RARITIES" or any item in this "ball park". "TEAR OFF YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS". I have seen numerous articles refering to this exact thing and people working in recycle centers who save these names and addresses to pass on to the criminal element. I take my family to doctors from time to time and I have started to leave my magazines and such, without my name and address of course, in the hopes it may