Everyone has some very precious things at home, items that may be of very high monetary worth, sentimental value, or both. That means if they are to be stored or moved anywhere, they need to be packed very carefully and securely, to prevent loss, theft, or damage.

Equally, it may be you have just acquired a very precious item, either for yourself or for someone else, in which case the issue of getting it to its destination safely is a very pertinent one.

Shiny Things To Take Home

Over the last couple of weeks, there have been many people collecting some of the most precious items anyone can get their hands on as the 2024 Paris Olympics have been taking place.

The moment when athletes stand on the podium with their gold, silver, or bronze medals, each of which contains a tiny fragment of metal taken from the Eiffel Tower (don’t worry, not enough to make it fall down), they will only be thinking of the glory they have achieved for themselves and their nations. But then they have to decide what to do with it next.

It might seem like the obvious thing to do is hang it up in some pride-of-place location at home, as many people would do with their own trophies and certificates. But when it is something this precious, it becomes an obvious target for burglaries.

The Danger Of Theft

Even getting it home is a big issue, with the potential for it to be stolen from luggage or simply snatched. Even those winning medals on home soil are not immune: in 2012, British Olympians Alex Partridge and Hannah Macleod had their bronze medals (along with Mr Patridge’s Olympic team blazer) stolen from a London nightclub just hours after they attended a reception at Buckingham Palace.

This is hardly unusual for sporting trophies. The original football World Cup, the gold Jules Rimet trophy held aloft by Bobby Moore in 1966, was later stolen in Brazil and melted down. Not that the English can criticise; it was stolen ahead of the 1966 tournament before being found by a dog.

However, sporting silverware is far from the only kind of precious item you might want to send by mail or transport in a house move. Jewellery, a painting, a sculpture, or a family heirloom could be just as precious to you as a shiny metal object paraded in front of a cheering stadium crowd.

Packaging Solutions

If you are going to transport something very precious for financial or sentimental purposes, custom made boxes are the obvious way to go. Firstly, these should include internal packaging that prevents any physical damage to the items, especially if they are quite fragile. Foam, shredded paper, bubble wrap, or a combination of them will help do this.

This can also be aided if there are cavities filled with soft packaging, with the item effectively being in a box within a box, adding extra levels of protection against damage if it is especially fragile.

Secondly, a box should be very robust and hard to break into, with no easy or obvious means of opening it - the kind of thing that might need something like a Stanley knife to open it when it finally reaches its destination.

Moreover, there should be nothing about the packaging or labelling that gives away any clue about how precious the cargo is - and, of course, it should be sent via a courier or recorded delivery so it can be traced every step of the way.

Novel Ways to Keep Things Safe

Once at its destination, it still needs looking after. Olympians who have taken medals home have used some ingenious means of keeping them safe.

An article by Bustle in 2018 noted that that year’s Winter Olympics medallists had their own special places to keep their precious metal, ranging from American skier Mikaela Shiffrin keeping her medals in her sock drawer and Czech Veronika Vitkova keeping hers under her pillow.

As for Christie Rampone, who represented the USA in football in the 2008 Beijing Games, she decided the best place to keep her medals was among the pots and pans, as no burglar would look there for valuables. More logically, 400-metre legend Michael Johnson told the BBC this week his medals are kept firmly under lock and key in a safe.

All these steps, however, have to do with what people do with their valuables once they arrive at their final destination. The key is to make sure they are transported there safely. Your own treasured item may not be a big sporting prize, but it will still be important to you that it makes its way to where it is intended safe and sound.