Hey, there! 
I was just wondering… Do you ever worry that your collection could get damaged or stolen? Fires, floods, steals…
I have a very small collection, but with the increase in prices, I’ve been spending quite a bit more than I was used to. I’m starting to think about security. How do you deal with this? Do you store your cards in water/fire-proof vaults of some sort? Do you have an insurance? Am I going paranoid here?
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Safes 101 & Safes 202: Two articles on safes written by a fellow forum member.
Try using the search function as well. Lot’s of great information on E4 regarding collection protection. Key words like “protection” and “safes” should produce some reliable results.
I looked this up a couple months ago and the most eye opening thing for me was most safes won’t protect you from a fire since the heat will melt toploaders and slabs. I think the best advice I found was to separate your collection into multiple locations if available.
Second this comment. I went down this rabbit hole a while back and still haven’t committed yet because while protection provides peace of mind it’s never full proof. Best question to ask yourself is will you ever be able to rest easy with how you have your collection stored right now? If a safe or vault is what will give you that peace of mind and you know that won’t change then go for it. Something to keep in mind though is if you go that route it will cost a pretty penny for proper protection. If you want to cut on cost but want to maintain sound protection I’d suggest placing your collection in a deposit box. The downside you’d have to make a trip just to see your collection. If you want to have your collection close I’d consider what type of issues you are concerned with most (fires, theft, water, etc). Pick one that gives you the most concern and go from there. For me it’s always been the fear of a fire destroying my collection. If that’s yours as well go with a data safe. Data safes allow internal temps at no more than 150 degrees. At those temps your PSA slabs won’t be affected. Hope this helps.
If you put your cards in a safe how will you ever look at them ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Keep some out for display. The rest store them? Small collection I guess displaying all of them is fine but at a given point it starts to look cluttered. Just my opinion though.
Nope. I’m too small of a fish to worry about my small collection. If my house burned down, I have bigger things to worry about. And if they get stolen, they probably needed the money more than I did.
Thank you all for your replies! I know I might be a bit paranoid here but just this summer I had a fire starting in the apartment just below mine. It was scary af. Thankfully, nobody got hurt, the fire was controlled early so no damage to regret. But ever since, I’ve been thinking about this…
I will take a look at the articles on safes and I’ll check some deposit services around my area. Thanks!
I would also try looking into getting a safety deposit box at a local bank. They have various sizes, if you go with the smallest make sure you can fit cards in it. Some banks offer free ones if your account has a certain balance.
I’ll definitely research that. Thank you!