Sorry to dig up an older post, but iron chests would be a suggestion of mine as well.
1. Appearance - iron block texture replaces the wood, with obisidian trim and a gold latch.
2. Fireproof, so if someone burns down the house the chest is still safe.
3. Only opens by latch/button/hidden redstone method.
4. Can be placed up to three side-by-side creating a iron locker with twice the capacity of a double chest, essentially double-dipping the middle chest for twice the capacity of a single.
5. Most importantly... non-craftable. Though I'm sure this would be frowned upon, making the chests recoverable rather than craftable makes them much more valuable. Where you may ask? Pyramids, strongholds, nether fortresses and (rarely) dungeons. Here's the rub though - you have to use a diamond pickaxe to recover them (hence the obsidian trim). When you find them, they are locked. Either you would need to open using one of the methods above or mine it properly which would give you the chest and spill out the contents.
The crafting recipe though not used would be iron ingots across the top and bottom of a 9-grid with obsidian on the sides and gold in the middle. If you don't use diamond, you'd randomly get part or all of the recipe if broken as well as possibly destroying some or all of the contents.
So on the plus side - fireproof, lockable, 3 in a row, extra storage. Minuses - can't be crafted, harder to mine, easy to destroy if you don't know better.
This is actually a very good idea! The only thing I would have to add is that the chest would need some kind of way to indicate when it's locked/unlocked. This is by no means useless, as it has the same properties as an iron door. To those who said it would be simpler to just break the chest, let me explain that that comment also makes iron doors obsolete. Therefore, my opinion is add this in!
1. Appearance - iron block texture replaces the wood, with obisidian trim and a gold latch.
2. Fireproof, so if someone burns down the house the chest is still safe.
3. Only opens by latch/button/hidden redstone method.
4. Can be placed up to three side-by-side creating a iron locker with twice the capacity of a double chest, essentially double-dipping the middle chest for twice the capacity of a single.
5. Most importantly... non-craftable. Though I'm sure this would be frowned upon, making the chests recoverable rather than craftable makes them much more valuable. Where you may ask? Pyramids, strongholds, nether fortresses and (rarely) dungeons. Here's the rub though - you have to use a diamond pickaxe to recover them (hence the obsidian trim). When you find them, they are locked. Either you would need to open using one of the methods above or mine it properly which would give you the chest and spill out the contents.
The crafting recipe though not used would be iron ingots across the top and bottom of a 9-grid with obsidian on the sides and gold in the middle. If you don't use diamond, you'd randomly get part or all of the recipe if broken as well as possibly destroying some or all of the contents.
So on the plus side - fireproof, lockable, 3 in a row, extra storage. Minuses - can't be crafted, harder to mine, easy to destroy if you don't know better.