Vienna
Registered Shopper
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2012
- Messages
- 6,008
My son`s a police officer and has attended many burglaries, sadly. Thieves tend to be either opportunist or quite often they`ll case a street or house/houses for days or even weeks, watching what time people leave and return, whether anybody is at home during the day and so on. Most people envisage a majority of burglaries taking place at night when quite often its the reverse. People often ignore alarms during the day and some hard faced thieves will actuall pass themselves off as workmen or delivery men. I actually stopped a burglary at my neighbours house, in daylight hours and the guy i saw over my garden fence peering through a neighbour`s rear window, when challenged said he was there to buy a piece of furniture she`d advertised. Most neighbours might accept that but what he didn`t know was my neighbour was also my sister and I knew for sure she wasnt selling anything. I took his van registration number, rang the police, it turned out the van was hired on a false licence and the police were convinced he was there to burgle the house.
As for jewellery, well the safest place to keep it is to wear it therefore taking it with you wherever you go but of course many of us have too much to do that. Those small safes you can buy arent much good cos they`ll just take the safe with them and bust it open and thieves are often smart, they`ll turn cupboards, freezers, furniture and even beds upside down and inside out but one tip is to never put all of your jewellery in one place, spread it about in different places and photograph it and keep records of it. My son says many stolen jewellery is often found in the windows of pawn shops or cash generators simply because the owners could actually provide photographic evidence it was theirs in the first place.
As for jewellery, well the safest place to keep it is to wear it therefore taking it with you wherever you go but of course many of us have too much to do that. Those small safes you can buy arent much good cos they`ll just take the safe with them and bust it open and thieves are often smart, they`ll turn cupboards, freezers, furniture and even beds upside down and inside out but one tip is to never put all of your jewellery in one place, spread it about in different places and photograph it and keep records of it. My son says many stolen jewellery is often found in the windows of pawn shops or cash generators simply because the owners could actually provide photographic evidence it was theirs in the first place.
. Thanks very much for all the info. There are no auctions that I know of locally (am in Lancaster, just south of the Lake District), and I can’t get around quite as easily since the little ones came along. I used to travel such a lot, based in London and passed through Glasgow, Birmingham, Leeds regularly etc and got to see so much more then. I *totally* agree about the misleading nature of many gradings of diamonds and other gems, I used to work for a GIA trained diamond merchant so know something of grading and it is shocking the claims that are made. I think I still have the eye but am much better with colour and cut than clarity (as many women are I think, it used to be understood that male eyes were better with clarity, don’t know how much sexism comes into that mind you!) Mistakes are also often made in terms of period dating too, it never ceases to surprise me how even good jewellers can’t spot reproduction even when it seems obvious even to me. (Maybe the same ones QVC claim can’t tell Eeek from diamonds – the ‘DQ CZ’ on the hallmark has always been a give-away to me!) 
