A Century of Trust: MegaSafe Brings High-Security Safes to the Locksmith Channel
Key Highlights
- MegaSafe has over a century of experience manufacturing high-end safes for elite clients, emphasizing quality and trust.
- The company is expanding its product line and seeking exclusive partnerships with safe stores and locksmiths in each state.
- All MegaSafe products exceed UL standards and incorporate German technology, ensuring top-tier security and durability.
- MegaSafe offers insurable safes capable of protecting millions in assets, catering to both homeowners and high-net-worth individuals and businesses.
Though MegaSafe may be a relatively new player in the locksmith market, this venerable New Jersey-based company has been manufacturing and selling high-end safes to elite New York City jewelry stores for more than 100 years. Now the company is seeking partners to increase sales of its line of high-quality, fully tested fire, burglary and gun safes.
Over the years, MegaSafe products have been selected to help protect assets for organizations ranging from major commercial facilities and financial institutions to high-net-worth individuals, collectors, retailers, and professional organizations. That responsibility is something MegaSafe owner Mike Hookway has never taken lightly. With a new manufacturing partnership and a new product line, Hookway says his mission remains the same as it was on day one: build security people can trust.
“Our main business is jewelers. Yeah, like Diamond District, jewelry stores, vaults throughout the country, other retailers, national accounts. That's all like our bread and butter. That's all like we've been doing since day one. And now we want to expand the line,” Hookway explains.
Hookway stresses that MegaSafe products hold and exceed several UL labels plus multiple European labels. The safes are manufactured in Germany and sold worldwide. “We just don't build things just to the... the spec like UL, you guys are probably familiar with: ULTL 30. Our safe exceeds that probably two times.”
Now that the product line has grown, the next goal for MegaSafe is to partner with a limited number of exclusive safe stores and locksmiths.
“What I want to bring back is old school, so I want to get exclusive dealers in each state so they can be an exclusive so they don't have to compete with every locksmith on every corner,” Hookway explains, noting that this will enable lockshops/dedicated safe stores to keep prices at a profitable level because they won’t be competing against other sellers in their market.
MegaSafe Products
With the dealer strategy in place, Hookway is equally focused on the growing product line.
Industrywide, the safe market is moving towards higher and higher security, Hookway says. Now that the larger banks are doing away with safe deposit boxes, people are looking to secure their valuables at home. Another factor is the rising prices of gold.
MegaSafe does offer fire, burglary safes and gun safes for the mainstream market. High security is the main focus and their products are fully tested and certified to – and beyond – UL standards, which holds them to a higher standard than safes that are merely self-certified by the manufacturer. Their new line is equipped with Wittkopp high-security safe locks from Germany.
Unlike Liberty Safe, which faced backlash last year for giving out a default combination without a subpoena, MegaSafe does not retain factory reset combinations and instructs customers to change the new combinations on their locks, record it and store it privately.
“We're not trying to sell the cheapest fireproof box out there. That's just not what we do. When it comes to real high security or real security, that's when you come to us,” Hookway says. “Do we have a level for everybody, including just a homeowner that wants to protect, you know, $1,000, $2,000 in cash and his passport and some paperwork? Absolutely. Buy the right tool for the right job.”
In the high-security end, we on average insure $3 million to $4 million in content, Hookway notes. While that sounds like a lot to the average homeowner, to the average business owner, it's not a lot. A serious gun collector could easily have $250, $300,000 just for his guns.
MegaSafe’s best sellers are the Grade I and the Grade V models. The Grade I is rated like a TL-15x6, which means it's been tested on all six sides. So that safe is going to compete against anybody's composite safe, anybody's BF safe, RSC safe, Hookway says. When safes are UL graded or rated, they are insurable. When they are not graded or rated, they could be a great safe, but they're not insurable. So these MegaSafe models could be insured for $250,000, which would cover 99 percent of homeowners’ needs.
“We don't have $250,000 worth of stuff to put in there, but it is capable of insuring that. And not always what you lock up is really valuable. It's only valuable to yourself, sentimental, something handed down to the family,” he adds.
Another notable — and beautiful — model is the Crystal Fortress, ideal for displaying valuables behind glass. It is available with two different glass options: ballistic, which is bulletproof, and unbreakable, which withstood more than 200 sledgehammer attacks during testing.
“We have everything tested on video and certification for these products. Yeah, that glass wall safe, we got it certified. So you can actually insure products in there, again, up to $250,000. So all your card collectors, gun collectors, you put a few guns in there. Some people have one gun worth more than $200,000, but again, the average guy, no. But the idea is you can display your collection.”
“Most of us hide our guns someplace, hide our baseball card collection, today Pokémon's big. If you hide it in your drawer, under your bed, in your closet, it’s not secure. The Crystal Fortress allows you to display any kind of collection — watches or guns or baseball cards, it doesn't matter. We had a guy with Nike Air Jordan sneakers worth more than $100,000. He displays his sneakers in it,” Hookway said.
“I don't upsell anybody. I always tell them, buy what you can afford. Don't try to get the cheapest you can get. Buy what you can afford because I'm protecting your stuff. It's yours. It's very simple. I mean, like I said, your heirloom from your family or whatever, there is no price for it. So you need to buy the security that you can afford. And why? It's a lifetime investment. Safes don't go bad.”
For more information, visit www.megasafe.com.