jacobrules wroteSo you’re the rotten guy who outbid me on the timelock. Nice score. I think you will find when you get it that it is a Beard Bros. timelock. Thats why I was bidding on it. I already have the Mosler version. I remember looking at the the views on Ebay and zooming in on the engraving and seeing Beard engraved behind the dial. So it must be prior to 1887 manufacture.
Wow! Neat. Thanks for the feedback. So I can conclude that the through-door winding eyelets were a later Mosler improvement on the Beard & Brother (not Brothers) lock. That helps explain a number of things that differ between the book pix & the poor eBay (out-of-focus) pix. The identical shape of the window opening makes me suspect that Mosler may have acquired a stock of parts and/or tooling along with the King patent rights (and King as well).
FWIW I was surprised to bag this one for under $700 when my seat-of-the-pants estimate of its value was at least twice that amount. I thought the auction would definitely go above $1K. I would assume that the pre-1887 Beard & Bro. version would be worth considerably more than a later Mosler version.
From AMERICAN GENIUS pages 206-207 there is a Beard & Bro. Type 2 which differs from the eBay lock in several major respects, such as bottom release instead of side & lack of the (assumed) damper piston at the lower left. I have been unable to locate an image of a Beard & Bro. Type 3. According to the book, only a single example of the Type 3 exists, in the Harry Miller collection. I plan to contact them to see if an image of it might be available. If it does turn out to be a Type 3, I think I’ll keep it in a safety deposit box!
Jack
[unknown]
