Here’s one I’d love to throw some light on-
Being thrown in the deep end at a very young age and sent out on site opening all types of safes, I went out to open this old 128 Queen Vic St Chubb with key lost when I was about 18 or 19. Thinking it was going to be another like all the others I’d seen and knew about, I got a shock when I saw it.
Unfortunately no photos as back then it often took longer to set up a manual SLR camera in dark offices than it did to do the job, so we always made detailed drawings with measurements but rarely took pictures. This rough sketch is all I have, but hopefully it’s enough for Brian, Safeman or someone else who may have encountered one and know the story behind it.
It was 26 inches high by 20 inches wide and early square cornered construction typical of the era, but unlike any other British safe I’ve ever seen- even to this day- it had a cast integrated base with castors in true USA style. Even more baffling was the fact that the cast base obviously wasn’t a random later addition or an after thought- it had raised lettering ‘Chubb’ and ‘Patent’ cast into it and was securely riveted to the body and the safe not just dropped onto it.
The lock was a typical Chubb Pipe used around that time- 4 inches by 3 and ⅜, 5-lever with razor sharp false notches, Pipe key with brass barrel and curtain tightly shrouded against powder attack with shield. Marked on the bolt head Chubb’s patent, 128 Queen Vic St, st Pauls London and with the Chubb fish logo. Door plate was ½ inch thick with ½ inch laminated hard plate- and god was it hard! Plus the outer door was peppered with Chubb’s hard dowels on approx ¾ inch centres typical of the period. They nearly always managed to get one directly over the drill point for the lock…
Other features which may not be obvious from the basic sketch are the handle- a cast round brass fluted knob, the Chubb plate was the typical rounded diamond pattern and escutcheon was again the typical pear-shape vertical sliding brass.
I think everyone at our place still thinks I dreamed this one up to this day! Even at that young age I had an interest in the American safes, cannonballs and round door money chests etc. A good friend, the late John Hucklebridge had left me boxes of Locksmith Ledgers so I was familiar with a lot of the stuff from across the pond. But here it was, a typical non-descript Chubb from the 1800s with a real touch of the USA. Would be great if anyone knows how and why they came up with this, as it’s the only British safe we’ve ever seen with a wheeled base.
