@Paradisefound said:
I am sad to see what happened to your collection but grateful for your escape
Our escape was a miracle. If I’d just had enough time I could have grabbed these coins. We had to run. We are all very lucky to have escaped with our lives.
A day I’ll never forget.
The bitterness of "Poor Quality" is remembered long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.
@crazyhounddog said:
Although this safe is rated up to 2000 degrees I have my problems. All of these separate boxes came out in one group, along with my Kimber.
...
...
Thanks for sharing your story and photos, Joe.
As we discussed on the "fire-resistant safe" thread, safes have a 2-part rating - the maximum inside temperature (say 350F or 130 F) and the amount of time they can keep the contents under this temp.
Many plastics melt at around 350 F or 400 F, and paper burns at 451 F.
It looks like your safe was doing its job, but maybe the fire lasted longer than it was rated for.
Fire-resistant safes
A fire-resistant safe is a type of safe that is designed to protect its contents from high temperatures or actual fire. Fire resistant safes are usually rated by the amount of time they can withstand the extreme temperatures a fire produces, while not exceeding a set internal temperature, e.g., less than 350 °F (177 °C). Models are typically available between half-hour and four-hour durations.
Document safes are designed to maintain an internal temperature no greater than 177 °C (351 °F) while in a constantly heated environment in excess of 1,000 °C (1,830 °F).
Data safes are designed to maintain an internal temperature no greater than 55 °C (131 °F) while in a constantly heated environment in excess of 1,000 °C (1,830 °F).
These conditions are maintained for the duration of the test. This is usually at least 30 minutes but can extend to many hours depending on grade.
An in-floor safe installed in a concrete floor is very resistant to fire. However, not all floor safes are watertight and will often fill with water from fire hoses, therefore everything stored inside should be placed in either double zip lock bags, dry bags, or sealed plastic containers.
God bless you Joe that was sorta painful to look at. Maybe PCGS could make an exception and reslab everything at no charge, seeing the circumstances you face. Anyone here have an in with the brass at PCGS? If I owned PCGS I would gladly reslab them all, including non holdered coins and coins in other slabs, just me.
I think PCGS can salvage your coins from the melted slabs. I forget who it was but they showed photos of gold coins in slabs that had been melted together. PCGS did a nice job of putting everything back together for them. Glad to see your collection survived somewhat intact, Joe. You had a huge loss so every little victory is a big win.
"May the silver waves that bear you heavenward be filled with love’s whisperings"
"A dog breaks your heart only one time and that is when they pass on". Unknown
Joe, from what I have seen of your collection you focus heavily on beautifully toned coins. I don't know if you've had the chance to really go through your collection since the fire, but I was curious if you had noticed any change in the colors on the coins that were in the safe?
At the end of the day, coins can can always be replaced. I'm glad you and your family were able to get out safely.
I am happy for you that your safe was not looted, or filled with water. I hope many or most of the coins are not damaged inside the boxes inside the plastic.
It is good to start a Monday with some decent news, I woke up and checked this tread.
Best wishes!
Rocco
@crazyhounddog said:
Although this safe is rated up to 2000 degrees I have my problems. All of these separate boxes came out in one group, along with my Kimber.
These photos flipped my emotions to happy.
@crazyhounddog said:
Yes I do have puddle of silver from the other safe. Here are some items that were in my good safe in a cigar box. I haven’t the slightest idea to do about this mess. These are, were, some nice coins I was going to submit.
These photos maybe realize there is yet a lot of work to be done. What a roller coaster of emotions.
@crazyhounddog, glad you and the family are safe and have place to stay through the holidays and rebuilding.
Hindsight is 20-20 but I am glad you did not try to retrieve stuff from the safe when the fire was raging. We all could be commiserating...
Such incredible devastation. I am so glad that you and your family got out safely. No doubt the emotional impact is severe. I am glad your safe protected your coins - to some extent. I cannot begin to understand what an emotional day this must have been for you. Cheers, RickO
Fingers crossed again that the slab plastic did not melt onto the coins themselves. I have seen this happen in the past. Seeing your home in that condition firsthand, must have been overwhelming.
I sure hope the coins are ok and that PCGS can give you a hand. As others said above, my first thought about the safe is that is wasn't the temperature, it was the length of time exposed to that temperature.
I'm going to be confident that most, if not all of the coins from that safe will be ok.
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
Priorities Joe. What would the collection have meant to you without your wonderful family? I know it is such a dear loss, I just hope beyond hope that some of your beautiful coins withstood the heat. Take care my friend.
Jim
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.....Mark Twain
The gasket melts first. I've done that just by leaving it under my photo lights for too long. The gasket doesn't stick to the coin though. The harder slab plastic might be more adherent, but I think there's a good chance the coins will be OK. Some might need some restoration work. The slab boxes and slabs themselves look like they provided a decent amount of protection.
The more typical residential gun safe (like the burned-out one above) is usually rated for a certain time (30-60 minutes), but realistically they depend on the fire department getting there within a few minutes to get things under control.
This whole thing is making me re-evaluate my storage strategies. It will be interesting to hear how the local SDBs fared. Probably OK, as those things are usually in well-protected concrete rooms..... but this wasn't your average building fire.
I am glad that you finally got there, and glad that you got to your safes first, but I have mixed feelings on what was inside. Hopefully the bulk of the value is still there, just in need of new plastic.
As an aside, if the springs in your Kimber retain their "springiness", then that should be OK. But, I recall hearing years ago that if springs lose their tempering in a fire and no longer work as intended then they should not simply be replaced, as the heat treatment of the frame and barrel would also have been impacted.
I guess a real fire proof safe is a hard thing to find. Your safe did fairly good considering. It could stand a second chance. Get a full makeover with nice glossy automotive paint. Or maybe leave it as is as a testament to its hardness. Hope all those slabs can be re-born in new holders by our host at no cost. Really sorry for all your losses.
My good friend who is a lifelong jeweler told me that the old jewelry safes are not fireproof. I told him about your situation and he told me the Plastic would be melted before you opened it and I saw your photo. He is concerned about the heat to the coins and the possible smoke damage. That said, we also think that your coins may be OK. Depends on how long they baked.
He has an EXCELLENT idea for you puddle of silver. I (we) would get an xray of it, tested and certified and most importantly get IT STAMPED with the purity and wording about the Paradise Fire and date. A true collectible.
@Kudbegud said:
I guess a real fire proof safe is a hard thing to find. Your safe did fairly good considering. It could stand a second chance. Get a full makeover with nice glossy automotive paint. Or maybe leave it as is as a testament to its hardness. Hope all those slabs can be re-born in new holders by our host at no cost. Really sorry for all your losses.
None are firePROOF!
Safes are rated both for fire and theft by duration of resistance.
A TL-30 safe is supposedly theft resistant to tools for 30 minutes.
some of the puddle coins may be freed from their plastic by dissolving with acetone (flammable so be careful) oh and don't breath that stuff for long. Acetone will do no harm to the metals.
I think I need to upgrade my safe. Fireproof is one thing but heatproof is another it seems.
bob
Registry: CC lowballs (boblindstrom), bobinvegas1989@yahoo.com
@Kudbegud said:
I guess a real fire proof safe is a hard thing to find. Your safe did fairly good considering. It could stand a second chance. Get a full makeover with nice glossy automotive paint. Or maybe leave it as is as a testament to its hardness. Hope all those slabs can be re-born in new holders by our host at no cost. Really sorry for all your losses.
None are firePROOF!
Safes are rated both for fire and theft by duration of resistance.
A TL-30 safe is supposedly theft resistant to tools for 30 minutes.
I hear ya. Not much you can do with a fire like Joe experienced. Put it under the house slab? Make a safe cellar hidie hole? Concrete sides and bottom and thick rock wool top. Water sealed hard.
Underwriter Laboratories has studied fires of all sorts. With sensors inside homes, etc. They are the ones that rate your safes (newer safes). This is what they say:
.
Wild Fires
People in the western states and wooded areas also need to be concerned about forest fires. In a forest fire, the temperature on the forest floor can reach 1,470°F, with hotter and hotter temperatures the higher you are off the ground.
They say the average home fire is 1,200 degrees at eye level within two minutes. Then the heat goes down due to oxygen starvation by the structure. Then it shoots straight up when the fire department breaches the outside an allows for the return of oxygen...temp can double to 2,500 degrees and then remains there for just a few minutes until the fire departments can get water on the blaze. It will then fall drastically and the worst heat is over.
The Los Angeles Fire Chief told a group of us "volunteer" firefighters that an acre of scrub oak, oak brush, California Oak, etc burn with the intensity of an Atom bomb. Stopping such a fire is extremely difficult. I was living in rural Colorado at the time (1980's) and he advised that the city/county establish laws forcing residents to remove all brush from around the home. He said 20' would be great and more even better. I had a beautiful clump of scrub oak and a huge boulder at one corner of my home. When I looked at it I could see the fire's path right up to the side of my home. Hated to remove that brush but did for safety's sake. I heard that 20 years later a brush fire (there were pines, too) did start on the hill behind that home. Thanks to all the city folk cutting back their brush only a few home were damaged and none lost.
The odds of losing your coins to a fire is far greater than losing them to theft.
bob
Registry: CC lowballs (boblindstrom), bobinvegas1989@yahoo.com
If you can, a safe in the floor is the best by far. However, most of them are not watertight. So, you'd have to protect anything that can be damaged by water by bagging and double bagging in zip type bags. The problem with floor safes, as we all know, it that they are tiny. Might only hold a roll of half dismes.
bob
Registry: CC lowballs (boblindstrom), bobinvegas1989@yahoo.com
@AUandAG said:
If you can, a safe in the floor is the best by far. However, most of them are not watertight. So, you'd have to protect anything that can be damaged by water by bagging and double bagging in zip type bags. The problem with floor safes, as we all know, it that they are tiny. Might only hold a roll of half dismes.
bob
If you are building new, plan an under slab insulated and water protected safe room. Also good when the zombie apocalypse happens.
@AUandAG said:
If you can, a safe in the floor is the best by far. However, most of them are not watertight. So, you'd have to protect anything that can be damaged by water by bagging and double bagging in zip type bags. The problem with floor safes, as we all know, it that they are tiny. Might only hold a roll of half dismes.
bob
If you are building new, plan an under slab insulated and water protected safe room. Also good when the zombie apocalypse happens.
If I ever build new, there is a whole wish list of security features I want to include.
@ErrorsOnCoins said:
My good friend who is a lifelong jeweler told me that the old jewelry safes are not fireproof.
The modern "fireproof" safes that are widely available for reasonable cost are made with a special inner layer that I believe actually contains water. In any case, the safes are made to expand as they heat up and that seals the space around the door to keep the heat and smoke out. The safe is totally trashed after having been in a fire, but if it did it's job then the contents are saved. They tend to be poor defense against theft however, as the features that give it fire protection also make it somewhat flimsy for theft protection.
@ErrorsOnCoins said:
He has an EXCELLENT idea for you puddle of silver. I (we) would get an xray of it, tested and certified and most importantly get IT STAMPED with the purity and wording about the Paradise Fire and date. A true collectible.
If the value was not too large, I'd consider keeping it as is to mark the tragic but historic event, suitably marked to preserve the provenance.
Think of all the great tragedies over the decades and centuries. In the aftermath the focus is on cleaning up the mess and rebuilding, but some of the artifacts would become treasured mementos if preserved.
If there was enough silver to be recovered from various sites in Paradise, maybe @dcarr could design a special commemorative medal to be struck from recovered silver. Maybe there could be even be a fundraising component.
Hopefully it's just melted slabs and the coins themselves are OK. You are definitely living the nightmare of quite a few people here, myself included, and I wish you the best.
On a lighter note, maybe you could work a deal with PCGS for them to reholder/conserve them for free, if you let them use your story and pictures of the coins before/after for marketing purposes.
You Suck! Awarded 6/2008- 1901-O Micro O Morgan, 8/2008- 1878 VAM-123 Morgan, 9/2022 1888-O VAM-1B3 H8 Morgan | Senior Regional Representative- ANACS Coin Grading. Posted opinions on coins are my own, and are not an official ANACS opinion.
@ErrorsOnCoins said:
My good friend who is a lifelong jeweler told me that the old jewelry safes are not fireproof.
The modern "fireproof" safes that are widely available for reasonable cost are made with a special inner layer that I believe actually contains water. In any case, the safes are made to expand as they heat up and that seals the space around the door to keep the heat and smoke out. The safe is totally trashed after having been in a fire, but if it did it's job then the contents are saved. They tend to be poor defense against theft however, as the features that give it fire protection also make it somewhat flimsy for theft protection.
Some safes which, at first, might appear to have a fairly thick steel plate on the door are actually drywall with a thin layer of steel covering it. The drywall typically contains some moisture. These types of safes do not have a very good burglary rating.
The inner fire layer in many home safes is concrete. It is literally poured in between the metal layers and then sealed up. The concrete is where the moisture comes from.
There is no getting around the fact that a good safe is going to be HEAVY.
@cmerlo1 said:
Hopefully it's just melted slabs and the coins themselves are OK. You are definitely living the nightmare of quite a few people here, myself included, and I wish you the best.
On a lighter note, maybe you could work a deal with PCGS for them to reholder/conserve them for free, if you let them use your story and pictures of the coins before/after for marketing purposes.
Sign me up. It would definitely be a project and a costly one at that.
The bitterness of "Poor Quality" is remembered long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.
Comments
I am sad to see what happened to your collection but grateful for your escape
I’m sorry to here this. What was the brand of this safe?
Choice Numismatics www.ChoiceCoin.com
CN eBay
All of my collection is in a safe deposit box!
Our escape was a miracle. If I’d just had enough time I could have grabbed these coins. We had to run. We are all very lucky to have escaped with our lives.
A day I’ll never forget.
Cannon
I'm so sorry to see the remains of the contents but you are alive at least.
Coins are a big deal except when they're not.
Keep the faith Joe.
Thanks for sharing your story and photos, Joe.
As we discussed on the "fire-resistant safe" thread, safes have a 2-part rating - the maximum inside temperature (say 350F or 130 F) and the amount of time they can keep the contents under this temp.
Many plastics melt at around 350 F or 400 F, and paper burns at 451 F.
It looks like your safe was doing its job, but maybe the fire lasted longer than it was rated for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe#Fire-resistant_safes
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/comment/12144520#Comment_12144520
Very nice of you to share this valuable information in your time of despair, and in such an eye opening manner. I have a safe like that.
God bless you Joe that was sorta painful to look at. Maybe PCGS could make an exception and reslab everything at no charge, seeing the circumstances you face. Anyone here have an in with the brass at PCGS? If I owned PCGS I would gladly reslab them all, including non holdered coins and coins in other slabs, just me.
I think PCGS can salvage your coins from the melted slabs. I forget who it was but they showed photos of gold coins in slabs that had been melted together. PCGS did a nice job of putting everything back together for them. Glad to see your collection survived somewhat intact, Joe. You had a huge loss so every little victory is a big win.
"A dog breaks your heart only one time and that is when they pass on". Unknown
Joe, from what I have seen of your collection you focus heavily on beautifully toned coins. I don't know if you've had the chance to really go through your collection since the fire, but I was curious if you had noticed any change in the colors on the coins that were in the safe?
At the end of the day, coins can can always be replaced. I'm glad you and your family were able to get out safely.
I am happy for you that your safe was not looted, or filled with water. I hope many or most of the coins are not damaged inside the boxes inside the plastic.
It is good to start a Monday with some decent news, I woke up and checked this tread.
Best wishes!
Rocco
https://www.autismforums.com/media/albums/acrylic-colors-by-rocco.291/
These photos gave me anticipation/dread combined.
This photo made my jaws drop. Sad. Empty?
These photos flipped my emotions to happy.
These photos maybe realize there is yet a lot of work to be done. What a roller coaster of emotions.
@crazyhounddog, glad you and the family are safe and have place to stay through the holidays and rebuilding.
Hindsight is 20-20 but I am glad you did not try to retrieve stuff from the safe when the fire was raging. We all could be commiserating...
Such incredible devastation. I am so glad that you and your family got out safely. No doubt the emotional impact is severe. I am glad your safe protected your coins - to some extent. I cannot begin to understand what an emotional day this must have been for you. Cheers, RickO
Words fail.
Best of luck with the recovery from this.
Fingers crossed again that the slab plastic did not melt onto the coins themselves. I have seen this happen in the past. Seeing your home in that condition firsthand, must have been overwhelming.
I sure hope the coins are ok and that PCGS can give you a hand. As others said above, my first thought about the safe is that is wasn't the temperature, it was the length of time exposed to that temperature.
I'm going to be confident that most, if not all of the coins from that safe will be ok.
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
Yes, if the plastic melted, then that's one thing, but how did the coins, themselves, hold up?
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
It's amazing that currency held up!
Is that a rock or a potato?
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
Looks like an egg, hard-boiled no doubt.
I was thinking it looked like a baked potato.
"A dog breaks your heart only one time and that is when they pass on". Unknown
Pet rock?
Priorities Joe. What would the collection have meant to you without your wonderful family? I know it is such a dear loss, I just hope beyond hope that some of your beautiful coins withstood the heat. Take care my friend.
Jim
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.....Mark Twain
The gasket melts first. I've done that just by leaving it under my photo lights for too long. The gasket doesn't stick to the coin though. The harder slab plastic might be more adherent, but I think there's a good chance the coins will be OK. Some might need some restoration work. The slab boxes and slabs themselves look like they provided a decent amount of protection.
The more typical residential gun safe (like the burned-out one above) is usually rated for a certain time (30-60 minutes), but realistically they depend on the fire department getting there within a few minutes to get things under control.
This whole thing is making me re-evaluate my storage strategies. It will be interesting to hear how the local SDBs fared. Probably OK, as those things are usually in well-protected concrete rooms..... but this wasn't your average building fire.
Devastation.
I am glad that you finally got there, and glad that you got to your safes first, but I have mixed feelings on what was inside. Hopefully the bulk of the value is still there, just in need of new plastic.
As an aside, if the springs in your Kimber retain their "springiness", then that should be OK. But, I recall hearing years ago that if springs lose their tempering in a fire and no longer work as intended then they should not simply be replaced, as the heat treatment of the frame and barrel would also have been impacted.
I guess a real fire proof safe is a hard thing to find. Your safe did fairly good considering. It could stand a second chance. Get a full makeover with nice glossy automotive paint. Or maybe leave it as is as a testament to its hardness. Hope all those slabs can be re-born in new holders by our host at no cost. Really sorry for all your losses.
The safe is fire proof alright and stand the test of time as you see the paper money still look so prestine
My good friend who is a lifelong jeweler told me that the old jewelry safes are not fireproof. I told him about your situation and he told me the Plastic would be melted before you opened it and I saw your photo. He is concerned about the heat to the coins and the possible smoke damage. That said, we also think that your coins may be OK. Depends on how long they baked.
He has an EXCELLENT idea for you puddle of silver. I (we) would get an xray of it, tested and certified and most importantly get IT STAMPED with the purity and wording about the Paradise Fire and date. A true collectible.
None are firePROOF!
Safes are rated both for fire and theft by duration of resistance.
A TL-30 safe is supposedly theft resistant to tools for 30 minutes.
etc.
https://www.deansafe.com/fire-ratings-in-home-safes-and-gun-safes.html
some of the puddle coins may be freed from their plastic by dissolving with acetone (flammable so be careful) oh and don't breath that stuff for long. Acetone will do no harm to the metals.
I think I need to upgrade my safe. Fireproof is one thing but heatproof is another it seems.
bob
I hear ya. Not much you can do with a fire like Joe experienced. Put it under the house slab? Make a safe cellar hidie hole? Concrete sides and bottom and thick rock wool top. Water sealed hard.
Man that's scary stuff. Remember acetone dissolves pretty much any plastic(flips etc.), just be careful with it if you do that.
Collector, occasional seller
Underwriter Laboratories has studied fires of all sorts. With sensors inside homes, etc. They are the ones that rate your safes (newer safes). This is what they say:
.
Wild Fires
People in the western states and wooded areas also need to be concerned about forest fires. In a forest fire, the temperature on the forest floor can reach 1,470°F, with hotter and hotter temperatures the higher you are off the ground.
They say the average home fire is 1,200 degrees at eye level within two minutes. Then the heat goes down due to oxygen starvation by the structure. Then it shoots straight up when the fire department breaches the outside an allows for the return of oxygen...temp can double to 2,500 degrees and then remains there for just a few minutes until the fire departments can get water on the blaze. It will then fall drastically and the worst heat is over.
The Los Angeles Fire Chief told a group of us "volunteer" firefighters that an acre of scrub oak, oak brush, California Oak, etc burn with the intensity of an Atom bomb. Stopping such a fire is extremely difficult. I was living in rural Colorado at the time (1980's) and he advised that the city/county establish laws forcing residents to remove all brush from around the home. He said 20' would be great and more even better. I had a beautiful clump of scrub oak and a huge boulder at one corner of my home. When I looked at it I could see the fire's path right up to the side of my home. Hated to remove that brush but did for safety's sake. I heard that 20 years later a brush fire (there were pines, too) did start on the hill behind that home. Thanks to all the city folk cutting back their brush only a few home were damaged and none lost.
The odds of losing your coins to a fire is far greater than losing them to theft.
bob
We need to upgrade our insurance!!!
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
If you can, a safe in the floor is the best by far. However, most of them are not watertight. So, you'd have to protect anything that can be damaged by water by bagging and double bagging in zip type bags. The problem with floor safes, as we all know, it that they are tiny. Might only hold a roll of half dismes.
bob
If you are building new, plan an under slab insulated and water protected safe room. Also good when the zombie apocalypse happens.
If I ever build new, there is a whole wish list of security features I want to include.
The modern "fireproof" safes that are widely available for reasonable cost are made with a special inner layer that I believe actually contains water. In any case, the safes are made to expand as they heat up and that seals the space around the door to keep the heat and smoke out. The safe is totally trashed after having been in a fire, but if it did it's job then the contents are saved. They tend to be poor defense against theft however, as the features that give it fire protection also make it somewhat flimsy for theft protection.
Why not sell the puddle metal to somebody who can make it into 'Paradise Fire relic' tokens?
FWIW, this is a most interesting and informative thread.
Under an outhouse seat should be pretty good for both fire and theft.
If the value was not too large, I'd consider keeping it as is to mark the tragic but historic event, suitably marked to preserve the provenance.
Think of all the great tragedies over the decades and centuries. In the aftermath the focus is on cleaning up the mess and rebuilding, but some of the artifacts would become treasured mementos if preserved.
If there was enough silver to be recovered from various sites in Paradise, maybe @dcarr could design a special commemorative medal to be struck from recovered silver. Maybe there could be even be a fundraising component.
It might be pretty neat to reholder the survivors labeled as "Paradise Fire Survivor" or something of that nature.
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
I'm chiming in kind of late here, but I certainly share the sentiment of the others who have wished you the best with this retrieval effort.
Pete
Louis Armstrong
Hopefully it's just melted slabs and the coins themselves are OK. You are definitely living the nightmare of quite a few people here, myself included, and I wish you the best.
On a lighter note, maybe you could work a deal with PCGS for them to reholder/conserve them for free, if you let them use your story and pictures of the coins before/after for marketing purposes.
Some safes which, at first, might appear to have a fairly thick steel plate on the door are actually drywall with a thin layer of steel covering it. The drywall typically contains some moisture. These types of safes do not have a very good burglary rating.
The inner fire layer in many home safes is concrete. It is literally poured in between the metal layers and then sealed up. The concrete is where the moisture comes from.
There is no getting around the fact that a good safe is going to be HEAVY.
Sign me up. It would definitely be a project and a costly one at that.