I rather liked the Unseen Library in the Discworld series where magic books are chained to the shelves - not to keep them from being stolen, but to prevent them from escaping.

Another series, wizards were being pursued by another, so to hide themselves, they whittled their staves into wands to better conceal them. One of them used theirs as the central pole in their parasol and worked as a governess.

Perhaps some of the artifacts are newer, strange technological devices that when you open them up are just full of rocks - or a magic circle that's doing something....