Reasons for valuables going in and out of house

Define valuables...

Maybe they buy antiques at yard sales and resell for higher prices? I guess it depends on what kind of valuables you're discussing.

Lpapercranes said:

Ah! Sorry. Should have been more specific. Things valuable enough that criminals might go to a great deal of trouble to try to steal them even if they have to get past a security system, and the items are kept in a safe, and people are already on the lookout for suspicious activity.
(That's all I really know at this point - I want to leave it open ended and just say "extremely, extremely valuable" because I think I'll end up with a wider range of suggestions.)

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Laundering conflict diamonds, maybe? You acquire them, store them in your house, and then filter them in to your legit diamond biz? Or perhaps you are a fence.

Are you looking for particular types of valuable things?

Because I know plenty of people who bring valuable items into and out of their houses because of their professions, only they're not the "gold/jewels/antiques" type of valuables, usually. In particular, I work in film, and anyone in any position who brings tangible items to set is doing this all the time. For people who work off camera, like camera/sound/lighting people, this would be similar-but-not-the-same equipment all the time, which would be very valuable but might not look exciting enough for your purposes; for people who do anything seen on camera, such as props/special effects/costumes, items would differ every show -- but in both cases there are plenty of instances where people are carting large monetary values in and out of their houses. (I note, of course, that for things like props and costumes, the items would probably *look* more valuable than they are, but that might fit your purpose as well -- and a lot of times things are used for movies that do have quite a bit of genuine value. I also note that a lot of people work out of shops / production houses, but also a lot of people don't, or rent from a shop / house and keep everything in their own home for the duration of a shoot to be carted in and out every day.)

I also had a friend once who worked as a courier. I think it was mostly small items, however, and that part of the job was making sure no one suspected he had any valuables while he was transporting them (security through obscurity), so I don't know if that fits your scenario (it sounds like you're trying to make this visible for someone else to see it happening?).

ETA: Just saw your new post -- it doesn't sound like any of this fits your purpose, oops! What about -- I'm pretty sure there are professions where people have to take custody of large amounts of cash for a time, and would probably keep it in a safe -- would cash work for your purposes? It wouldn't be very visible going in and out, but if someone found out about it . . .

I worked with a jeweler who put gems in the fish tank, like the rocks you find in the bottoms of fish tanks. He would handle thousands of dollars worth of jewels.

Also, I recall staying with a family that was the descendant of a famous general. They had all his memorabilia in their basement. It was worth thousands, but the local museums didn't want to insure for enough to cover it.

My son is a watchmaker and repairs the watches -- if he had a workshop at home, he would take watches in and out. Some of them are worth hundreds of thousands.

Just brainstorming -- I can think of lots of ways to go in and out with valuable stuff!

Perhaps the character is a bagman of some kind.

Jewelry is a very good choice. Read up on the diamond trade, and you will be amazed at the ways that diamonds are handled. While some dealers have huge vaults that would take an H-bomb to crack, while others use the low-key method with gems kept in a handkerchief in one's pocket and brought home and left any place (or in a fish tank). Also some art dealers are rather casual with pricey works of art.

Lpapercranes said:

Sihuang, what was your courier friend transporting? How valuable? And did he take them straight from customer to customer?

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Jewels, money, documents, things like that. Small things that could be carried on a person's body without exciting the suspicion of would-be thieves. I don't know the details of whether he brought them home or went straight from client-to-airport, etc., unfortunately.

When my ex was a courier, he would bring stuff home if it was too late to go deliver it. In our state, there are specific hours it's not okay to go knock on someone's door.

King Neptune said:

Jewelry is a very good choice. Read up on the diamond trade, and you will be amazed at the ways that diamonds are handled. While some dealers have huge vaults that would take an H-bomb to crack, while others use the low-key method with gems kept in a handkerchief in one's pocket and brought home and left any place (or in a fish tank). Also some art dealers are rather casual with pricey works of art.

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In my experience there can be a sort of . . . complacency that sets in when one works with very valuable things for a long period of time. There are only so many times one can be stunned with, "Holy crap, this thing is worth $X, I have to treat it SO CAREFULLY!" before it wears off to some degree. That's my been experience with people who do that sort of thing, at least, whether or not they take things in and out of their houses.

It rather reminds me of my friends who have become new parents -- with remarkable speed they managed to go from, "HOLY CRAP BABY HOW DO I HOLD HER WHERE DO MY HANDS GO I'M GOING TO DROP HER AND BE THE WORST PARENT EVER!" to slinging a giggling infant around with relaxed cheerfulness.

Bearer bonds could be a possibility. Some guns can be very expensive - eg James Purdey. They could be going in and out to have stocks replaced.

You have two choices.

Valuables EXPLICIT: Art, documents, jewels, cash, antiques and collectibles. The reason to move them in and out of the house is to trade or deal in them.

Valuables IMPLICIT: Basically tools. Tools of a trade that require you to move them in and out of your home on a regular basis. As others have implied this can be very expensive equipment, computers, electronics, optics etc. Things small enough to carry and necessary on the job. (This includes very tiny microchips and memory cards)

Good luck.

Is this in the 21st century in the United States?

Information can be very valuable and can be carried in and out of a house on a laptop or even a thumb drive.

Lpapercranes said:

This is so helpful!

I might be leaning towards diamonds or jewelry. If someone worked in the (legal) jewelry trade, would they have a reason to sometimes bring valuables home with them? What reasons might they have? (I can already think of the reasons they'd have if they were criminals.)

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Sure. Some jewelers work out of their homes. That's an easy way to have someone often bring materials in and finished works out.

Lpapercranes said:

There are kids living in the house, so it seems a bit unrealistic to me that it would be the front for a criminal operation, but correct me if thats not right?

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The police here frequently raid grow-ops and drug labs where small children are living. If the parents are breaking other laws, what do they care about child-safety regulations?

What if your 'someone' is a photographer? Specialises in photographing antiques and jewelry for magazines, or coffee-table books, etc? Sometimes he goes to the objects, and sometimes they come to him, especially as he's got a studio with the proper lighting, backgrounds, etc.
There's the cost of the items, and his equipment would be expensive, as well.

Jewelers carry stuff around all the time. Being a diamond merchant (usually work in the diamond district and are very often orthodox jews) is one of the only ways someone can get a permit to carry a gun in NYC. Traditionally, the people that do it are visible, work in the same area, and wander about with diamonds on their person, as someone above noted, sometimes just tied in a handkerchief in a pocket.

They don't go to wherever, go home instead because it's late, or don't make the bank, so does what they're carrying - it's their business (as in they own it).

I used to vaguely know an art dealer who had insane amounts of valuable stuff in the home. He found, acquired, bought on spec, whatever, and had an apartment positively filled with crazy valuable artwork.

I used to work for a large chain jewellery store. We had people who did custom jewellery come and do shows at our stores. Customers would come in all the time with old pieces of jewellery they wanted redesigned. Some of them were really beautiful old pieces, but the customers usually wanted something more modern made for them using the same stones and reusing the gold.

I've known a few goldsmiths who lived above their shops, or had a shop in their home. Jewellery has to get transported in various ways a lot of the time, the biggest reason is for repairs followed by moving merchandise for showing. People don't see it usually because, it's the last thing that jewellers want to advertise, but it's out there.

At the risk of going too meta, what about rare books? A common burglar won't know the difference between a first edition and a moldy old copy of a Hardy Boys book, and wouldn't have the first idea of where to get a good price. Meanwhile, a specialist would have a buyer already lined up, probably a commission to get that specific book.

Yes, at a certain stage you have to keep these books in climate-controlled conditions and handle them only with cotton gloves. Until then, someone could conceivably "bring their work home with them." Maybe they restore books (or paintings) at home in their spare time, but in a small niche, such as anything by John Dos Passos.