If I'm checking a bag, there's a good chance it's my golf clubs. Fortunately, they aren't exceptionally valuable: 3-year-old Callaways at this point, street value of a couple hundred bucks max. Plus golf clubs aren't the easiest thing for a baggage handler to ferret out of the airport.

For a long international trip, I might decide to go with a checked backpack full of clothes. It's a 12-year-old internal frame pack from Cabela's...kind of beat-up at this point...probably the least-interesting bag possible to a would-be thief.

The items listed upthread are either (a) things I never travel with at all or (b) things that are obviously on my body or in a carry-on bag.

If you had a particularly valuable work of art, wouldn't you arrange it to be professionally shipped? I'm not sure I'd even throw that in an overhead bin where other pax could accidentally break it. Guess it depends on what kind of art it is and how fragile it is.