Barska Fire Resistant Jewelry Safe - 2.55 cu ft Exterior, 1.01 cu ft Interior Fireproof Jewelry Safe

Most jewelry is not lost to a burglary. It is lost to a drawer — set down at the end of an evening, meant to be put away properly, and still sitting in a dish beside the lamp a year later. A bedside drawer is the first place a stranger would think to look, and it offers nothing at all to heat.

This is a small white cabinet for the end of that habit. It is made to live in a bedroom or a home office: low enough to sit on a closet floor, plain enough not to announce what it is, and lined so that the putting away does no damage of its own.

What goes into a safe this size is usually a mixture — the pieces worn twice a year, the watch that belonged to someone else, and the papers that would take months to replace.

What it holds

Room for the good jewelry that currently lives loose in a dresser drawer, a camera and a watch box on the shelf above it, and the christening bracelet nobody has worn since.

It's more expensive than some other bigger Barska safes?

A safe of this kind is priced by weight and by lining, not by the space inside it.

The weight comes first. This is a 115 lb cabinet holding under a cubic foot — most of what you are lifting is wall rather than room. The body steel measures 0.12" and the door plate 0.31", and behind the steel sits the mineral fill that buys the half hour. A jewelry safe is small on purpose, and the smaller the room, the more insulation there is per cubic foot of it. You are not paying for volume. You are paying for the thickness of what surrounds a small volume.

The rest is the interior. A glass shelf, two suede-lined drawers, a carpeted lining and a light that wakes as the door opens are not what a plain document cabinet is given, because paper does not need them. A ring set down on bare steel is marked by the next thing set down beside it. In a safe built for jewelry the lining is not a finishing touch; it is most of the purpose, and a good part of the cost.

A note on the number

You will see this safe described as a 1.01 cubic foot cabinet. Measured from its own interior — 13.2 by 14 by 9 inches — the arithmetic comes to 0.96. The difference is about the size of a hardback book, and it is a rounding convention of the trade.

Specifications

Interior

13.2"H × 14"W × 9"D

Interior volume, calculated: 0.96 cu ft

One glass shelf, removable. Height adjustment not stated by the manufacturer.

Two suede-lined jewelry drawers, removable

Inner locking box: none

Interior finish: carpeted lining, with suede in the drawers. Motion-sensor LED light, which wakes each time the door is opened.

Door organizer: none

Exterior & siting

17.5"H × 18"W × 14"D

115 lbs

Anchoring: four pre-drilled mounting holes. Mounting hardware included. Whether the holes sit in the base, the back or both is not stated by the manufacturer.

Clearance: allow for the door to swing clear of the frame. Hinge side not stated by the manufacturer.

Wheels: none.

Security

Lock: electronic keypad. Two PIN codes stored.

Override: two backup keys. The keyhole sits behind the keypad fascia.

Locking bolts: three steel bolts. Diameter and placement not stated by the manufacturer.

Door assembly thickness: 0.31" at the door, 0.12" at the body. Barska publishes these in millimeters — 8 and 3 — and we have converted them. Whether the door figure describes the outer plate alone or the full assembly is not stated by the manufacturer.

Hinges: not stated by the manufacturer.

Alarm: low-battery warning. Lockout after three failed entries.

Fire, water & media

Fire rating: 30 minutes at 1,400°F, as stated by the manufacturer. Certifying body: not stated by the manufacturer.

Media / data rating: Not a media safe. This rating is built to protect paper. A drive, a tape or a strip of film needs an interior held below 125°F, and this is not built to that promise.

Water rating: None claimed.

The rest

Power: one 9V battery for the keypad, four AAA batteries for the interior light. Neither is included.

Warranty: one year limited.

Manufacturer part number: AX13104

Finish: white

In the box: two backup keys, mounting hardware, glass shelf, suede-lined jewelry drawers

What half an hour buys

A fire rating is a furnace test, not a prophecy. Thirty minutes at 1,400°F means a cabinet of this pattern was closed, brought to that temperature, and opened again with its interior still below the point at which paper begins to char. It is a controlled, repeatable measurement, which is what makes it worth quoting — and also why it describes an oven rather than a house.

The protection comes from water, which surprises people. Fire-insulated safes of this class are built with a mineral fill, gypsum-based as a rule, that holds moisture within its structure. When the heat arrives, that moisture leaves as steam and carries the energy away with it, and the interior stays cool for as long as there is moisture left to spend. Barska does not state what fills these particular walls; the principle is the same across the trade.

What the rating buys you is the first half hour. Whether that is enough is a question about your house rather than about the safe — where it sits, how soon the fire is found, how long the floor above it holds. Two practical things follow from that. Heat gathers at the ceiling, so a safe on a closet floor spends a fire in the coolest air the room has. And a cabinet that has been through a fire has spent what it had; if that ever happens, ask us before you trust it a second time and we will put the question to Barska.

The moisture question

Barska recommends a dehumidifier. That recommendation is worth understanding rather than filing away, because it follows directly from how the safe works.

The same insulation that holds moisture to spend against a fire also keeps the inside of a closed cabinet damper than the room around it. Add a door that seals reasonably well, and a box that is opened for a few seconds a week, and you have still, humid air sitting against metal. What that does depends on the piece — alloy, plating and finish all decide it, and we would not predict an outcome for any particular item. What can be said plainly is that still, damp air is the condition metals like least, and that a jewelry safe is where a household's most reactive small objects end up together.

What this is not

It is not a media safe. That standard asks for an interior held below 125°F, because a drive or a tape is ruined long before paper is. This cabinet is rated to protect paper. If what matters most to you is photographs on a hard drive, tell us and we will point you to the cabinets built to the stricter promise.

It is not water rated. No claim is made, and there is no seal here to make one with. Worth knowing, because a fire in a house is generally followed by a great deal of water.

It is not a burglary-rated safe. No UL listing is claimed for the body or the door, and none is implied here. The steel measures 0.12" at the walls and 0.31" at the door, which is the right distribution — the door is where an attack goes, because the door is where the openings are — but this is a lined jewelry cabinet, not a strongroom. At 115 lbs it is well past a casual lift, and not past two people with a hand truck and an afternoon when nobody is home. Anchor it. Four pre-drilled holes and the hardware are in the box for precisely that reason.

It is not a listed firearm safety device. Barska's own specification says so plainly. If a DOJ-listed device is what you need, Barska builds models that carry the listing and this is not one of them — better said here than discovered later.

It does not arrive with batteries. One 9V for the keypad, four AAA for the interior light. Worth having in the house before it lands.

On the maker

Barska began in 1994 in sports optics — binoculars, riflescopes, spotting scopes — and came to safes afterwards, bringing a manufacturer's habits with it rather than a marketer's. It shows in the specification sheet, which is unusually willing to say no: this one states plainly that the safe is not a listed firearm safety device, in a place on the page where a less careful company would simply have said nothing at all.

They sell broadly — hardware and sporting retail, catalogues, the general market — and a specification written for that channel answers the questions that channel asks. A collector's questions are different ones. Where a figure we would have liked is not printed, we have said so above rather than guessed at it; and where you need one of those answers before you commit, ask us and we will write to Barska for it. We are in touch with them regardless.

We carry this one because it does an unglamorous job properly: fire protection for paper, a lined and lit interior for small things, two codes, two keys, and a weight an ordinary bedroom floor can take without a conversation.

Questions

Will documents fit?

Letter-size papers lie flat with room to spare — the interior is 14 inches wide and 9 deep. Legal-size folders will not; at 15 inches they are longer than the cabinet is wide, whichever way you turn them. Deeds, certificates, titles and passports are letter-size or smaller, and are fine.

Can the shelf and the drawers come out?

Yes, both. That leaves a clear interior of 13.2 inches from floor to roof, which is useful for anything tall and awkward that would otherwise have to lie on its side.

How many people can have a code?

Two. That is the limit, and it is worth measuring against your household before you order. There are also two backup keys, so if a third person needs access, a key is the answer rather than a code.

What happens if I forget the code, or the battery dies?

Two backup keys come with the safe, and the keyhole sits behind the keypad fascia. The keypad warns you while the 9V still has life in it, and three failed entries put the lock into lockout rather than opening it. One piece of advice, given freely: keep the keys somewhere that is not this safe — a relative's house, a drawer at the office, anywhere but inside the thing they were made to open.

Will it protect a hard drive, or photographs?

Not in a fire. The rating here is for paper; drives, tapes, negatives and slides need an interior held below 125°F, which is a different and more expensive cabinet. Tell us what you are keeping and we will point you at the right one.

Can I move it myself?

At 115 lbs it sits below the weight where freight and liftgates usually enter the conversation, but it is well past a one-person carry, and further past one up a staircase. Plan on two people and something with wheels for the last part of the journey.