Tom Gordon wroteThere is always a problem if you cant see the safe which they came off - Chatwood refurbished locks…indeed they took 5 or however many tonne safes back to the factory to do full-on refurbs of the entire safes.
You can get switched locks or new locks and new escutcheons, so you can get an 1890 safe with a 1930’s nameplate and locks on, because after 40 years they could need it sometimes! They were still making old style locks to replace worn out ones too, where an update wasnt really required.
Both of those 5 spindles and the 12 lever lock all seem to be 1906-1916, while the fan lock was made in the Spring of 1875. They were top of the range locks although would have been a bit old fashioned at that time on a new safe. The new locks which they could have fitted were cheaper and smaller - which wasnt for sure what the customer wanted, in Chatwood’s market sector, but they they may have been just replacing existing locks like with like on an older safe.
What an interesting and informative reply Tom.
Always impressive when a company continues to offer that level of back-up all those decades later (especially full refurbs even taking massive safes back to the factory), but the point that really amazed me was where you said they still made the older style stuff for situations where updates weren’t needed- that’s British pride in industry and engineering at its best :-)
The last company I can recall that ‘honoured’ their products to that degree was probably Parker pens, but from memory even their services finally succumbed to the “bin it and buy a new one” concept back in the 1990’s.
[unknown]
