A collection leaves the house in three ways. Someone takes it. Time eats it. Or the person themselves becomes the target, at the door, with the demand to open the safe. The certified safe covers the first way, and that one only if the piece fits inside and the box matches the sum.

Security for collectors means: protect the piece according to its physics. Small and easy to sell, into the anchored safe. Sensitive to light, moisture and heat, in the place the material can stand. Larger than any box: room, sightline, anchoring, insurance policy. Weapons have a duty of their own. At the edge are pieces where the law comes before the safe.

What actually happened in houses

December 2019, Kensington. Tamara Ecclestone was in Lapland, the house was cleared out. The early report named £50 million. The conviction in November 2021 put the gang's series at £26 million. The largest single haul was this house, at £25 million. The same proceedings include the house of Frank Lampard. The £50 million is the early report. The £25 million is the figure from the judgment.

On 5 October 1967 masked armed men entered the villa of Willis H. du Pont in Coconut Grove, tied the couple up and took thousands of coins. The New York Times wrote in March 1968 of a robbery on the order of 2 million dollars of that time. Part of it came back against a ransom.

On the night of 3 to 4 October 2016 armed men attacked Kim Kardashian at the Hôtel de Pourtalès in Paris. She was in the room. That is robbery of the person, in the same hour in which a safe no longer decides anything.

In December 2005 Henry Moore's "Reclining Figure" disappeared from the foundation grounds in Much Hadham. 2.1 tonnes, in the reports around £3 million. The police assume the bronze was melted down and sold for around £1,500 as scrap. The grounds belong to the foundation. Size alone does not protect when the metal has a scrap price. For your own bronze in the garden, that is set out at Garden bronzes.

What the radar names in Germany

In the local EinbruchsRadar, as of August 2026, there are 6,713 offences. 1,323 of them have a loot list. Jewellery stands in 385 cases, watches in 217. Coins appear in about 10 reports, weapons in about 14. Cash is the most frequent item. A residential burglary in June 2026 names jewellery, cash, watches and coins together at 100,000 euros. Where a watch value is given, about 24 cases, the median is about 3,000 euros. The highest named watch value is 200,000 euros.

Watches, jewellery and coins therefore have a German picture drawn from police reports. The individual texts say what of that belongs in the safe and what time destroys anyway.

Where the big cases sit somewhere else

Trading cards: the documented haul in 2025 sits in a shop in Cincinnati, 113,650 dollars. Further documented cases are shops. For the home the same physics applies once the cards are there: Pokémon cards, sports cards.

Wine: Legend Cellars lost wine from customer compartments of a commercial warehouse, 2.7 million dollars, a former employee was convicted. The French Laundry lost bottles from the restaurant. In September 2026 more than 3,000 bottles of Barolo were missing at the Conterno Fantino winery. A home cellar is a different door. The rules for that are with the wine collection.

Papers, grade, anchoring

The home contents policy replaces a collection only up to the sum the contract actually names for valuables. Which grade goes with that is in the guide Insurance sum and security grade. Cash and valuables are separate there: Insurance of valuables. A safe two people can carry out is a piece of furniture: Anchor the certified safe. Invoices, certificates and the inventory do not sit in the same box as the pieces: Fire-resistant document safe. How an ordinary burglary empties the known places in minutes: How burglars go about it.

The address of the collection, the photo of the open safe and the inventory do not belong in the same post. If you wear the good watch on your wrist through the city, you show that more may be lying at home.

A hundred collections, five decisions

Each of the following pieces has its own text. The decision before that is always the same. Does it fit in a box without spoiling in there? Does it spoil from light, dryness or heat, even without a thief? Is it larger than any safe? Is it a weapon, with a duty instead of an opinion? Does the limit lie in the law, in the origin, or in the piece being a key?

Watches, jewellery, stones

Small, known, a price at once. The anchored safe, the papers in a second place, the everyday piece not as a badge of the collection.

Coins, notes, paper money

Metal goes into the pocket, paper fades. Both want one line per piece, and the receipts do not sit with the metal.

Paper, image, sound

Light, acid and a hot box. The portfolio is often the protection, the dry safe the damage.

Bottles and tobacco

Upright, dark, cool, know the fill level. A dry certified safe is the wrong place here.

Figures, toys, fashion

Card and condition are the price. Sealed stays sealed. Worn is a different piece.

In the room

What does not fit in the box is secured by the door, the view from the street and the insurance policy, piece by piece.

Weapons and hunting

Here the cabinet is a duty. New cabinets sit at least at resistance grade 0 under EN 1143-1. Piece counts and the existing-stock protection for heirs are in the guide Gun cabinet grade 0 and 1, the individual auction pieces at the most valuable weapons.

Nature and origin

You leave patina alone. You clear origin, species protection and export with the authority before you buy, clean or take a piece across the border.

Keys that look like collector's pieces

A typewriter and a prop are things in the house. A cipher machine and a seed plate are keys: no photo, no storage place on the net, the second plate in another place.