Imagine that your relative died, and you made a deal to let someone haul off his huge and heavy safe in return for the right to sell it for scrap. As anyone who has watched “Storage Wars” knows, locked safes can contain junk, they can be empty, and sometimes they can contain untold treasures. In this case, it was the “treasures” thing.

The man’s survivors apparently didn’t expect what really was in the safe, or they would have stood by at the locksmith with armed guards and maybe a lawyer or two. It took a few weeks to get through the concrete-filled walls, and the locksmith told reporters that he was about to get hold of some C4.

The Houston locksmith who got the safe open says that people frequently hire him after a loved one has died and left a safe behind. The survivors hope to find Scrooge McDuck-level riches inside. Sometimes there is emergency cash. Sometimes there’s nothing but important papers, and gun safes only contain guns. Sometimes families learn things that they would have preferred not to know.

“I opened a gun safe for a woman whose brother had died. It was full of Nazi memorabilia and the family hadn’t even known he collected that stuff,” he told the Houston Chronicle.

In this case, the survivors were quite happy to learn about the safe’s contents. It was filled with gold coins, silver bars, and some jewelry. Houston police briefly seized the contents, which is what happens when millions of dollars suddenly turns up where no one expected it.

Millions in gold isn’t all you find while busting open safes [Houston Chronicle]
Tough old safe takes weeks to crack, holds hidden treasure [KTRK]

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