anybody own a personal safe? (1 Viewer)

[Ryan Tsang]

I saw them at Office Depot (a large stationary outlet store like Staples in case others don't have one). I thought they were pretty cool. I felt like a big kid....needed a secret place to stash stuff. You know....toy-guns, firecrackers, Gretzky's rookie card, porno.... I'm kidding

There's one for $40 by Sentry but it doesn't hold much and the handle feels real cheap. Then I thought if it's too small like that, theives could just take the whole thing and hacksaw thru it later!

I kind like the cube-shaped steel boxes with a big combo lock on the front. So are these sub-$250 safes actually safe? Can some 16yr old zit-farm hack the electronics or have his cousin pry it open? Are they a waste of money?


more thought......I guess it's for fire/water damage more so than theft.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

My parents had one. It had bolt-holes in the bottom. The idea was to put it under the crawl space bolted to the foundations of the house. You could only get to the bolts after opening the safe. This kept crooks from just walking off with the safe.

If you want to protect documents from fire, why not just keep copies at your office? Very unlikely to have your house and your place of employment burn down at the same time.

 

[Lee L]

I have one but I have heard that they are somewhat trivial for a trained locksmith to break into. I have a few things I would like to protect from fire as much as possible as well as make it just that much harder for a thief to get to. I would think that most of the run of the mill burglars are not safe crackers or locksmiths so they would move on once they see the thing. If someone actually targeted you because of something specific, I would doubt that many safes would stop them anyway.

 

[DaveF]

I have a basic fire-proof lockbox (also from Sentry). It's meant to protect papers from a fire. I bought it to store important documents like my passport and car title. My motivation was not to prevent theft but to make sure I don't lose these items. In a file folder they could easily get misplaced or lost during a move. I'm much less likely to misplace my 30 lb lockbox (though I have to make sure I don't lose the key).

So I think a safe would be a good place to store valuable items just to make sure they don't get lost. Plus, it would be cool to spin the dial as you open it up

 

[Christ Reynolds]

i have a sentry combo safe, storing some of my goodies. i doubt anyone would try to steal anything from me, but just in case...plus this stuff would really suck if there was a fire here. basically it is just for my 1954-55 gordie howe card, and any extra room is just for future expansion

CJ

 

[Grant B]

I had a sentry and the lock screwed up pretty bad, finally got it opened and chucked it. FYI