from now on everything in the house like that will be kept in the new gun safe. I had it in a document safe (the kind you can open with a nail file) but honestly I only bought it for its fire rating, I even left the key in it. I hid it behind a box of gorham sterling flatware underneath a low shelf on a corner table. You couldn't see it unless you were laying on the floor or moved both the sterling and my whites metal detector out of the way. The other jewelry box with the scrap gold in it just had a gumball machine lock from the 50's on it so it was twisted off with ease, having only a cigar box type hasp on it.
We've settled with the girl who took it, despite me wanting to ring her neck, we came to a solution. She will go to church every sunday with her mom, and seek counseling at least twice a month from the church. She will finish high school. And she will pay 200$ a month for the next 3 years. The amount we came to was an estimation, and she honestly got off a lot better than if we had the jewelry to weigh out, let alone what it would have sold for retail being very intricate gold work, and having over a karat in diamonds on the engagement ring (the biggest was .82 i think). I had an appraisal for the engagement ring, and added 2 oz of gold to it. After we came to it, and I listed everything out, there was probably closer to 3-3.5 oz between the scrap and my grandparents jewelry. I hope this helps her, our families are close, but I don't want anything from her mom or grandmother, she needs to take responsibility, (which she has) make reparations, and try to get help; she'll end up in jail or worse on the path shes on, sending her there sooner won't help her and it won't repay me.
the sad thing about it is that after 21 years my parents now lock their doors. In all that time they've never had a soul do wrong by them, friend or otherwise. The first time something was stolen and it was a friend of the family who was looking for something to steal. If she had asked for help, she would have found it, I don't know if I feel the same way anymore though.
I still have to file a police report to get the jewelry in the stolen property log, it's unique enough I doubt it got melted down, but then again, maybe unique jewelry goes first.
As far as my personal stash, it's in a bank vault now.
