I recently cleaned out my father-in-law's safe deposit box. There wasn't much in it: just a diamond ring that hadn't been worn in more than 30 years, and two birth certificates-one for him, and one for my recently deceased mother-in-law.

Years ago, a family's safe deposit box might hold a treasure trove of goods and documents. Opening a box, you might expect to find jewels, stock certificates, or the deed for some long-forgotten property. But that time is long past. These days, we use bits inside a computer's memory bank, not tokens of irreplaceable paper, to keep track of our life's records and our net worth. Few people hold stock certificates; information about stock ownership is kept in brokerage accounts. Few officials insist on seeing an original birth certificate; a fax or a photocopy will suffice. Even interest in gold and jewels seems to be faltering: in the 1960s, my father-in-law told me, his father gave him a gold watch-as something to sell if he were ever out of cash and needed to eat. Such was the mind-set of people who lived through the Great Depression. But these days, few people buy jewels for their investment potential. Instead, jewelry and gold is mostly bought for enjoyment and show.