As opposed to their conventional cousins, diversion safes are used for hiding things as much as safekeeping them.
Or perhaps, to put it more succinctly, they secure by hiding.
In the spirit behind the old adage that the best defense is a good offense, this sort of safe works not by brawn but by brains, so to speak.
Indeed, their construction almost always offers no tamperproofing capabilities whatsoever.
That’s because diversion safes are created out of otherwise everyday things, almost everything from containers and candlesticks to electrical wall outlets and every frequently carried coins!
Thus, given these realities, this type of safe is not really “safe” in the traditional way often thought possible of a safe.
They’re not meant to withstand tampering but to avoid it by not drawing any attention at all.
For that cause, they are also commonly known as as hidden safes, although technically speaking the safe isn’t usually hidden in any way; without a doubt, their performance comes from being right out in the open!
They are also sometimes called by the more general term of concealment devices, specifically in connection with cases of espionage.
Common instances include suitcase with false underside and hollow fountain pens.
Coins were also employed, made most well-known by the Hollow Nickel Case wherein a paper boy inadvertently discovered just such an object.
During the early summer of 1953, Brooklyn newsie Jimmy Bozart was paid with a nickel that seemed too light.
Being a Brooklynite, the fourteen year-old was nobody’s dummy and tested his accusations by dropping the coin, whereupon it popped open on the ground to uncover its contents.
Jimmy told a buddy who was the daughter of a New York City police officer who naturally told her day who informed a private investigator who went on to inform an FBI agent….
As it turns out the coin comprised microfilm with an undecipherable series of numbers.
Four years would cross before a fecting Soviet spy finally solved the mystery: it was simply a coded greeting to a newly arriving KGB officer!
