Inventor lets you prep for the worst with 'buried treasure'

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Let's say you're stocking up on gold. Just in case things head south.

Where do you keep it?

"I had to focus in on human nature, and human nature wants to take what other people have worked hard for."

A safe? That option started sounding a lot less secure after Liberty Safe gave the FBI access to alleged January 6 rioter Nathan Hughes' gun safe last year. Turns out the company had a backdoor code to get into every safe it sells. The company now allows customers to opt out of this. It turns out that other safe companies do the same.

Not to mention the fact that nothing says "here's where the good stuff is" to thieves like a shiny metal cube with a big dial on it. A persistent criminal with a blowtorch or an angle grinder can make short work of the most impressive-looking lockbox.

What if we protected our valuables safe by making it impossible to find in the first place? That was the thought that ultimately led entrepreneur Howard Murray to revisit a time-tested method of hiding treasure beloved by pirates and prospectors alike: burying it.

Hence his product's memorable name: the DirtyMan Safe.

"Our claim to fame for this product is I don't have passwords," Murray tells Align. "We've actually had people send us checks because they don't want it to go through the banking system. Numerous people [have it shipped to] their PO boxes. They don't want it going to their homes. ... I have no idea where [a customer is] gonna bury his. Even if they subpoena me, all I can give them is the ship-to address. I don't know where the safe is gonna go."

How it works is simple. You take a post-hole digger and a dig a hole about 30 inches deep. Insert the safe's cylindrical "sleeve"; then insert the safe itself, also cylindrical. Both are made of industrial-grade ABS plastic, which can last for more than 50 years without decaying — and won't degrade precious metals. Cap the sleeve and cover the hole.

To retrieve your valuables, dig until you reach the cap, then used the attached pull cable to remove the safe.

Murray's original inspiration was hearing stories of people who lost everything after house fires, such as in Maui last summer. "The safest place is under our feet," Murray says.

Once Murray solved the problem of protecting the safe's contents from nature, he needed to consider another threat. "I had to focus in on human nature, and human nature wants to take what other people have worked hard for."

Mainly this meant thwarting metal detectors. Murray made the retrieval cable out of 316 stainless steel, which is particularly difficult to detect. The plastic, of course, won't register, and any metals placed at the bottom of the safe should be deep enough to avoid triggering metal detector sensors.

In addition, each DirtyMan safe comes with a packet of ferrous "salting" metals, which, when scattered around the site, will provide false metal detector readings. Murray got the idea from national parks, which use the technique to discourage collectors from digging up public land in search of Civil War artifacts.

According to Murray, glowing reviews from those in the prepper community show he's filling a need. While precious metals — and, more recently, crypto hardware wallets — have long been the preferred way to store value, storing that stored value has always proven to be a challenge.

This is not the first time Murray has made preparing for disaster more feasible. His previous invention, Waterfull, is a 30-gallon, pressurized barrel that addresses the need to keep emergency water stores unobtrusive and fresh.

The DirtyMan safe comes in three sizes, the largest with 4" by 10" of storage. Murray has limited the size to make retrieving the safe require as little strength as possible, but he says he's been getting requests for larger versions from people he slyly deems "Second Amendment folks." But that might require a move from his current base in Southern California.

While Murray is an enthusiastic pitchman, he's also upfront about his struggles. "We failed miserably at the beginning, miserably," he says. What kept him going? He credits a certain humility — "I'm just a guy that sat down with a piece of paper and a pencil" — as well as the unwavering support of his wife and son.

He also likes the idea of his products being there for people in "the worst times of their lives." He says that one goal keeps him motivated through the ups and downs of shoestring entrepreneurship: "I just hope we can do some good in this world."