Where to hide your valuable coins ? posted by Paul Kiraly

[CSJournals-migration]

It has to to be a (SAFE) place for me

 

Like many coin collectors in this great registry, I realized where to keep my coins a long time ago. A lot of collectors asked me where do I keep my collection. The answer is " a gun safe " .I went to my local sporting good store and purchased a 3 foot deep and 6 foot high gun safe for my coins. I had a choice of a dial or digital mechanism to open the safe. I perfer the digital,because it is a little easier to remember the numbers and it beeps of over a week when the battery goes low. The safes comes with crappy flimsey pressboard felt shelves and also come with strong reinforced metal push pins that hold the shelves. Inside of the safe is a reinforced strip the goes up and down on both sides of the safe to adjust the shelves. I went and threw away the pressboard felt shelves. I measured the inside of the safe from both angles. I subtracted 1/4 of and inch from both angles fron the metal inside shelving strips. I went to home depot and purchased a sheet of 3/4 BC plywood. It is the super strong and will never break. At any home depot or lowes they will cut the lumber for free to your exact measurements and it is a perfect straight cut. You can make eight shelves from one sheet of plywood. The reason you subtract 1/4 of an inch, is when you put the new 3/4 shelves in, it actually fits snug and you dont need to force the shelves in and scratch pretty felt inside lining of the safe. Push the Reinforced push pins where you desire all the shelves to be at first. when you have all the push pins ready, you put all the shelves in the bottom of the safe stacked on top of each other. The reason for putting all the shelves in at once, is as you get to the bottom of the safe, you cant put the shelves in from outside of the safe anymore. This is a perfect way to store your coins.

I dont believe you should buy the small portable safe. If your house gets robbed,they can carry your whole collection at once.

If you collect paper money, my simple advice, if you dont want to but an airtight safe. Get a nice big book and cut out the center of almost every page with a nice new razor blade,to fit the paper money inside. Put elmers glue around the inside of the rectangle to permently seal the pages together. It will allow the paper money to breathe fron the front cover you can open. Place it on anybook shelf. If someone breaks in, nobody steals your books. Criminals dont read!

Safety deposit banks I dont think is a wise choice. You know that little sign on every door of every bank the says "FDIC Insured up to 100,000". This meams everything you own in that bank is only insured for face value. If the bank ever goes under and shuts down, they use your money to bail themselves out and the government will reinburst the people back for whatever the face value was in the bank. This means those 20.00 gold eagles, u will get a check back for only 20.00. That 1916-D mercury dimes u have, you will gat a check for only ten cents.

My choice is a huge safe in your house that you can get to your money whenever you want !

 

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[nazmuth]

This is wrong about safe deposit box contents on bank default.

 

http://fdic.gov/consumers/banking/facts/payment.html

 

 

 

 

[Mark T]

Your comments about the safe deposit box are dead wrong. If a bank fails the government does not seize your safe deposit box. FDIC insurance is for deposits held in savings, checking or any other FDIC insured accounts. FYI – FDIC insurance is now $250,000.

Bottom line - coins should be insured regardless of where your store them, if you are an ANA member you can get great rates from Hugh Wood.

 

[James_OldeTowne]

I went to home depot and purchased a sheet of 3/4 BC plywood. It is the super strong and will never break. At any home depot or lowes they will cut the lumber for free to your exact measurements and it is a perfect straight cut. You can make eight shelves from one sheet of plywood.

Be aware that this type of wood will emit chemical gases, and may have a severe long-term detrimental effect on your coins. This is especially true since the coins are being stored in a confined area.