While there’s certainly some merit to a shiny new safe there are also a number of good reasons to purchase your next safe previously owned and at a discount price. The truth is that safes haven’t changed too much throughout the years. The basics have remained the same: thick walls and high quality steel are the same benchmarks of quality now just as they were 50 years ago. The main difference between a new safe and an old safe is going to be the locking mechanism. Modern locking mechanisms are generally more sophisticated and technologically advanced in some cases but this is also an easy aspect of your safe that you can update and change with the help of a local shop or safe professional.
Here we’ll look at how to shop for a used safe and what you need to be looking for to make sure that you can get the most out of your deal and have a high quality safe at a discount price.
The Basic Inquiries
When it comes to purchasing an older safe it’s important to keep in mind that many of the various fire and burglar ratings might not be available for older products so you won’t have the same guarantees you get with a modern safe. However, in general, you can get a pretty good idea of a safe’s capabilities just from looking at its build and the thickness of the walls. When shopping for a used safe try not to mind the sometimes off-putting aesthetics and focus on the build quality. You can always refurbish a safe to make it look nice if it has a solid and well built core design.
In general, you only want to purchase a used safe in person and not online so that you can inspect it yourself and not get any unexpected surprises. Additionally, this is a great bonus because you’ll hopefully be able to ask additional questions and really get the scoop on the safe’s history. When possible you want to find out as much as possible about the safe’s maker, previous owners, purpose (burglar or fire?), and maybe even where this safe stood in its own time in terms of quality. The more information you can find about a potential used safe you are interested in purchasing is going to be beneficial.
Are Antique Fire Safes Reliable?
This is a bit of a tricky question because there are some people that swear older fire safes are even more effective than their modern counterparts but then again you don’t have the same quality assurance and guarantees you can get nowadays. After the Chicago and San Francisco fires in the early 20th century there was a bit of a boom in fire safes that were designed to withstand structural fires for long periods of time (fire fighting response teams weren’t quite so quick back then) so there is some logic behind this thinking. However, this is something that is very difficult to test and difficult to tell if an antique fire safe will still be effective today. In general it’s advisable to only purchase older pre-owned safes for the purpose of burglar protection.
