Great pics wylk- all the ones I’d trawled up were always very shadowed and grainy- the first one is exceptionally clear and I’ve never seen that close-up before.
Not 100% on the star cam on the combo side for sure, but worth considering Fichet always went their own route with combinations locks they’d pioneered from an early stage. As far as I know they never used single dial 3 or 4 wheel locks of a ‘traditional’ design like S&Gs. They came up with their own designs, and like some of their key locks I think some ideas borrowed and developed in association with Bauche in the early years. They used a lot of 4 dial click-action combos on their very early safes, of which I still have a beautiful example, but they were basic in comparison and probably not used on the doors.
I’m not sure when they came up with their famous ‘Monocommande’ principle, but if I remember right the outer bezel on the door front was turned (clicked) to select the wheel or gear, and the centre dial or knob was then turned and clicked to the actual number. I only ever saw a few modern ones from the early 1990s, so don’t know what early examples or any variations for vaults were like, but one things for sure- with a case full of ‘planetary’ drive gears and pivots and springs everywhere, they were a real box of tricks.
They’re still made on the same principle- think it’s called the C2C or something now.
Looking at the front of the door, I can only guess the dials for the combo locks are fitted to the right of the central drive housing for the pressure bar system, between the drum housing and the crane hinge, as there’s nothing visible on the left where most manufacturers more commonly position them. They must be a snug fit against the drum though as they never show up in any pictures, although the position makes sense seeing the relative position of their mechanism from the back.
These are nice doors though, a lot more aesthetic than the Torino’s which had the square centre trim. I’ve got another tiny miniature from years ago- it’s simplified in terms of number of bolts and having round windows etc, because of the tiny size, but hopefully most will see a resemblance
Your bit about the artist painting the model as Art reminded me of an even more extreme stretch of the idea- nothing to do with locks or safes but I’ll make brief mention of a project where they’d spent hundreds of thousands adapting a panel van (i think), so the one side was covered in flat screen monitors and the other with high resolution cameras. They then drove it around London. The cameras video’d everything as the van drove past and instantly relayed it to the monitors on the other side, so viewers on the one side of the road would see everything as it should be albeit over the van as it drove past- was a really weird effect reminiscent of the camouflage used by the Alien as it moved around the jungle in the movie ‘Predator’…
