The Quiet Disappearance of the Safe Deposit Box (2023)

As banking goes corporate and mobile, the big banks are less and less willing to set aside floor space for safe deposit vaults, leading to a shortage in many cities.

There was a time when these things were very common among people who owned valuable loot, but nowadays, you're more likely to keep your jewels and shit at home and send your money to ADT than to spring for a metal box that's only accessible during banking hours.

Have you ever had one of these? What did you store in it? Are they hard to get in 2023?

I loved safety deposit boxes, going with my parents as a kid to one of those small town Depression era banks to put things in the box. A bank officer would lead you being past the big vault and into the box room with its leather topped tables where the box would be placed and then the officer would leave you alone to open the contents.

In college and as a young adult I kept one, a useful thing for passports and legal documents and some important trinkets from being lost in many moves. At some point when I was more settled it became difficult to find one and so I just stuck everything in a home safe, much bigger than the safety deposit box and much more convenient, if less secure.

I always wanted one. Not that I own anything super valuable but I love the idea of knowing where something is no matter what.

I know this is going to be make me sound old, but I miss when people got dressed up to go to church, to fly, or go to the bank. The banks I remember going to as a kid were so fancy looking, with crystal chandeliers and art deco designs. Now people wear ratty pajamas on planes and going to the bank is like going to the DMV

I have a hidden safe in my concrete kitchen floor, It came with the house, I think the previous owners were doing something very questionable?

Luckily it was easy to change the combination. And key.

[quote]I work for a bank and we never put them in our new locations. They are a fucking pain in the ass not to mention the expense. Good riddance!

r1, I bet your bank had a lot of lonely old people with time on their hands that would come in and ask to see their safe deposit box every week. I can see where that would add up to a waste of time.

I had a safe deposit box when I was in my 20s. I stored my passport, extra checks, and about $1000 in cash in there.

[quote] you're more likely to keep your jewels and shit at home

No, OP, that second item is kept in the toilet.

My mom always had a safe deposit box with her jewelry and important papers.

Now that she’s died, we still have the safe deposit box but none of the kids want to deal with her jewelry—we can’t even sell it because much of it was handed down over the last three generations to my mom. So in the safe deposit box it stays.

[quote]Now that she’s died, we still have the safe deposit box but none of the kids want to deal with her jewelry—we can’t even sell it because much of it was handed down over the last three generations to my mom.

Trust me, you can sell it. And should do.

"The last three generations of jewelry handed down to" your mother? Sell it, for fuck's sake. Are these pieces worn by the Princess Sissi on occasions of state? No? Then sell it. If anyone wants any part, they can buy that part with their share if the proceeds from the sale of the rest -- or not.

You silly queens holding onto Mother's inherited jewels are ridiculous. Do you have another security box for your grandmother's girdles because you can't bear to break up the collection, what with some of them being inherited...

Take the jewelry to a good jewelry artist, let them take out the diamonds, melt the gold and make you something new. You could barter the stones and metal for something they've already created, why not?

As far as I've read it is actually illegal to store cash in a safe deposit box. Drug dealers do that.

[quote] we can’t even sell it because much of it was handed down over the last three generations to my mom.

What does that matter? Sentimental reasons?

[quote] . Do you have another security box for your grandmother's girdles because you can't bear to break up the collection, what with some of them being inherited...

Crap! now I have to get a safe deposit box!

[quote]There are so many jewelry collector's out there.

Oh, DEAR!

R37, as cute as you are, you shouldn’t worry about it.

You too sexy!

R39, are you remotely aware of how wealthy you are? Most of us aren't squirreling away piles of silver, gold and "titular documents."

Unreal how out of touch people are here.

[quote]Granted, I'm 50, but it seems strange to have no need of a safe deposit box.

It seems a confluence of factors are behind the wane in safe deposit boxes: the steady decline in use of bank branches AND automated teller machines by business and personal customers; the decline in numbers of branch banks; the habit of storing financial records at home and online; the ease of obtaining lost financial and legal records; and the increased awareness that a paper deed lost does not mean that one's ownership of a property is lost.

The sense of the physicality of records -- that to hold a deed is to hold ownership in one's hand-- has evaporated the way Kindle's have replaced home libraries. Likewise people are more attuned to the idea that a lost document can be easily printed anew and obtained, usually through an online request. Paper stock certificates are not quite obsolete yet, but they are, with rare exception, unnecessary. It's the prevailing idea that once drove interest in safety deposit boxes -- and now doesn't.

R43 [quote] The sense of the physicality of records

Exactly. The records my parents saved were for such minor things, but there was no 'cloud' for backup so people were in the habit of saving everything. Even so, when we found grocery receipts from 1973 it seemed a bit on the obsessive side.

My valuables are the passwords to my bank accounts and deed to my house which I keep in my underwear drawer.

[I loved safety deposit boxes, going with my parents as a kid to one of those small town Depression era banks to put things in the box]

R4 - I was wondering how long it would take someone to mangle the perfectly correct term “Safe Deposit Box” into the malapropism “Safety Deposit Box”.

[quote]My valuables are the passwords to my bank accounts and deed to my house which I keep in my underwear drawer.

Then they’re as safe as can be.

Don’t nobody gonna go in there!