Protecting your Collection from the Bad-Guys, Part 1- Security. - By: Bill Harvey

Municipality Statistics:
Articles such as this are all but required to start out with crime statistics. You may well have heard or read these before, but they are worth repeating:

• The FBI reports a burglary occurs every 15 seconds.

• Only about 13% of all reported burglaries are ‘cleared’ and the police very rarely catch the thief in the act.

• A home without a security system is 2 to 3 times more likely to be burglarized.

• 90% of police believe home monitored alarms help deter burglary attempts.

• Over 1.3 million home invasions occurred in 2004.

• 61.4% of all burglaries involve forcible entry, and over half (62%) occur during daylight hours.

• The value of property stolen during burglaries in 2004 was an estimated 3.5 billion dollars.

GENERAL ADVICE
So what to do? Basically it comes down to sending the bad-guys to your neighbor’s house because your house is too hard to get into. Not impossible, just harder. You know the story of the two guys walking in the forest and talking about bears? One said he would run away but he doubted he could out-run a bear. The other guy said he had similar doubts, but noted he didn’t have to out-run a bear -he only had to out-run the other guy. I’m not at all sure about the morality of either outrunning the other guy, nor contributing -in some small way- to your neighbor’s house being burgled, but nor am I going to lose any sleep over it.

Here is the advice -from Brinks Home Security no less:
1. Leave your outside lights on at night. If your neighborhood is dimly lit, ask your municipal authorities to add streetlights or replace existing bulbs with higher watt bulbs. Leave one or two lamps on inside your house when you're not at home.

2. Lock up with reliable dead-bolt door locks and sturdy window latches help prevent break-ins.

3. Tall hedges provide hiding places for potential burglars. Trim the hedges so that they're no higher than your windowsills.

4. Peepholes with magnifying lenses let you see who's at your door - without opening it.

5. Never leave notes on your door, even when you're at home.

6. Tune the stereo or TV to your favorite station when you leave the house. To a burglar, noise means that someone's home.

7. Close and lock garage doors to protect valuables stored there and to prevent access to your house.

8. If you are going to be out of town for a spell, park an additional car in your driveway or ask a neighbor to park there. It gives the appearance that someone's always home and prevents burglars from backing a van into the drive for easy loading.

9. If you leave a spare key outside, hide it creatively. Burglars routinely check under flowerpots and welcome mats and on window ledges.

10. Ask a neighbor to collect newspapers and mail when you're away. If you'll be gone for an extended period, hire someone to take care of your lawn or even to house-sit.

11. Team up with your neighbors and form a crime watch program. Your local police can help you get started.

ADVICE SPECIFIC to COLLECTORS:

While all of the above home-protection ideas are useful to collectors, there is one DON’T and one very important DO:

DON’T engrave your driver’s license number on every item in your collection. (Duh !?1)

DO photograph and log every item in your collection. This is no more then what a serious collector does just for the fun of it. Or he or she does it to keep track of what needs to be added to complete the collection. Store the list in your workplace or somewhere away from your home in case of fire. Update it every quarter or so. If it is a sufficiently large collection, update it every month. There is actually software for some collectibles (coins and stamps for example) that makes this easy. It’s is also essential when filing insurance claims. More on insurance anon.

The one statistic I couldn’t find was what portion of how many thefts are committed by people the victim knows. I suspect it’s higher then we might expect. You protect your home from the bad guys -the burglars and drug addicts, but what about the people who would never think to break into your home and steal your plasma TV? Not your kids surely, but what about their little friends? Your housekeeper? Perhaps not her -she’s been with you for years, right? But her boy-friend drops her off and picks her up -and waits around if she isn’t quite done? What about the guy who also collects X and was referred to you by that guy who knew the other guy who you met at the last show. You going to get together and talk about your mutual interest in X? You going to show him your best items? What if the phone rings while you leave the room while you have your X’s proudly spread all out? Is your mom-in-law is a kook? Your roommate besotted in love with just exactly the wrong person? And so it goes. If you were to think about it for awhile, you undoubtedly could come up with you own list of doubtful visitors.

If any of these people were to take a single item from the back of the bottom drawer, how long would it be before you were to notice it was missing? And even if you did notice it right away, how would you go about getting it back? The police? You had best have a good friend either on the police force or the town council, ‘cause the police are too busy writing tickets for wrong left turns. (BTW, that portion of municipality’s budgets coming from traffic tickets has -on average- doubled in the last 20 years while the portion of crimes against citizens that are solved -or are even investigated- has dropped by more then half!)

So what to do about “friendly” theft? Lock it up! As I have said elsewhere in my site, locks may only keep the honest people out, but it is a good start. Someone from the list above who steals from you is not honest -but nor are they habitual criminals like the guy who breaks into your home while you are at work. A lock on a drawer case may be easily defeated with nothing more then a big screwdriver, and a hammer will get you through the glass or plastic of a display-case, but it will make noise and there is no doubt that the perpetrator is stealing -not “borrowing”. Might be enough to keep your stuff where you think it belongs.

Additionally, let’s suppose that it is valuable only in your mind -your spouse has some doubt as to this fact. Lock it up and it becomes clear that it is -BY-GOSH- valuable. Most of the stuff that I make can be made with a lock. Wall and floor safes for the home come in every shape and size. I have built more then one elegant drawer case to fit into a wall safe. Got a really BIG collection? Check out gun safes. Such a thing would hold a LOT of coins or stamps.

In Protecting your Collection from the Bad-Guys, Part 2 - Insurance, Alarms, and Your Mind-Set., I take up steps you need to take now to avoid the urge to choke the life out of your insurer if -heaven forbid- your collection is a loss. Also, in some ways, security is a mind-set. Here is some advice on getting your head around it all.

HOW-TO take steps to protect your valuable collection. Keeping the bad-guys out is easy to understand, but what about the not-so-obvious security threats?

Bill Harvey makes drawer and display cases for collectors and museums at Home-Museum.com.
He is also author of the COLLECTOR's HOW-TO series for dedicated collectors and hobbyists who wish to display and protect their very best stuff.