Mostly they are safe. There's been only one physical cryptocoin provider that has had compromised keys that were stolen and then the affected coins were drained of their loaded value. It wasn't Titan.
If you want to feel better about it, stick with the known names - Casascius tops the list. I have several Casascius coins. There's so much value in these coins that if a coin creator committed fraud the whole system would be come devalued.
Is it really safe? It's only really safe when you use a trusted provider, but physical storage devices are always risky so you think before using it.
I think you might be misunderstanding the question. The OP is talking about physical bitcoins. People have minted coins and then loaded them with bitcoin, the private key is secured beneath a hologram that if tampered with shows damage very easy (it's a security measure.) The minter/creator of the coins at somepoint handles the private key so technically someone else knows the private key if you own one of these coins.
He's not talking about a hardware wallet. And physical storage devices aren't risky...but hey, you'll get paid for your post, right?
