Jewellery can be a significant investment. As such, it’s an investment that you’ll want to protect. But how can you keep your jewellery safe – both from wear and tear, and from people who might try to take it?
Let’s take a look at a few worthwhile precautions, and consider how to best look after this investment.
What Can You Do to Keep Your Valuables Secure?
Your home might contain a range of valuables, beyond your jewellery collection. The same basic principles apply to all of them. Getting more expensive items registered with Immobilise will help the police to return them to you – on the off chance that they are recovered.
How To Make Your Home Safe From Burglars
Given the dismal record of the UK police in catching burglars, however, it’s worth taking a more preventative approach, too. Make sure that all your doors and windows are locked whenever you leave the house.
Install quality locks on your front door. Ideally, you’ll want two separate locks, which will vastly increase the amount of work a burglar needs to do to get into the house. This should include a deadbolt. For most doors, the standard to aim for is a five-lever mortice deadlock. These devices are fitted within the door itself, rather than on the outside.
Other security measures, like automatic lights, cameras, and alarm systems, will also act as a deterrent. Cameras are more affordable than they ever have been, and can be monitored remotely – even when you’re not in the country. In some cases, however, you might be tied into a subscription service for the storage of your footage.
How to Look after your Gold and Jewellery
Getting the best from your jewellery in the long term means occasionally cleaning it. In the case of gold, this might mean soaking the item in a combination of dish soap and water. You might also find specialised solutions which are explicitly marketed as jewellery cleaners. Avoid bleach at all costs.
Bear in mind also that vigorous cleaning can cause stones to be worked loose of their housing. Make sure that you proceed very carefully. Don’t clean your jewellery in the sink – since this risks the item being lost down the plughole. If you do drop the item, don’t panic – it can often be recovered from the waste trap. But it’s usually better to avoid the problem in the first place.
It’s also worth looking at the way that you store your jewellery when you aren’t wearing it. Boxes should ideally be large enough to accommodate the items, but not so large that the items are rattling around. Soft linings, of silk and velvet, can be extremely useful in preventing nicks and scratches.
