Antique safe, Yale and Towne Lock

jdavidperry

I just purchased an unknown brand floor safe that has a combination lock from The Yale & Towne MFG Co. I cant seem to find any other pictures of another dial just like it. I will have the safe in my possession tomorrow and would like to learn all I can about it. It is about 18″ wide and 23″ tall. It is currently locked w/ no combination. Dial spins freely, but feels different from my modern safes. Best information is the last owner never opened it. Used it as a end table in his shop. He owned it since 1965. I do not expect to find anything though. How would I start to determine brand of safe and approx year of manufacture. Besides the “ The Yale & Towne MFG CO” on the dial knob it also has Pat February 5th 1895 on the ring. I plan to restore the best I can and actually use the safe. I have been practicing manipulation on a few newer safes I have and plan on taking as long as it take to manipulate this one. No hurry to open. I am a industrial designer and cnc programmer by trade but I am fascinated by safe and vault technology, just about all locks in general.Thanks for any help getting in the right direction

John Perry

Doug MacQueen

John, that patent is for Stockwell’s OB lock design, which I have always assumed stood for open bottom. It is a 4 wheel lock and Yale also offered it in a 3 wheel version, known as the OBB. Quite a few makers used these locks and I would need better pictures of the hinges, the handle and full front to have any hope of IDing it. The safe would be no later the 1920’s. Doug

jdavidperry

Doug,

Thank you for the information so far. Here some additional pictures that I hope help. A little soap and water and a name shows up, original owner maybe. Appears to be thick gold paint. Maybe remnants of a picture just below on the door. Please let me know if additional specific picture would help more. The dial seems loose to me. Will pull in and out approx .030″ or so. Is this normal? Nothing seems to bind. Squeaks a bit though. Again thank you for any help.

John

David Hovey

Interesting safe. The construction, casters, hinges, and the body corner angle iron reminds me of Victor. Never have seen a Yale OB in a Victor cast iron safe. Unlikely is a Yale L2 with the OB patent, tho stranger things have happened.

T Davison

The safe is a Baum. They copied Yale OB lock, The wheels are 2 ⅛″ in dia with a 3 wheel curb pack. This lock has a front driver. The date of the lock will be stamped on the curb cover, July 28 1908. This was a very good copy of the Yale OB lock. The casters are almost the same as the Victor home safe. But no “T” Handle. If you like a drill point PM and I’ll give you that.

Doug MacQueen

Yes, it could a Baum, or a Victor. or even something else. If the Yale dial is original, I would not expect to find a Baum OB type lock in the safe but rather the Yale lock. The hinges do match many Victor safes and do not match any Baum safes I’ve seen, but then again I certainly haven’t seen it all. The castor style has been used by both companies, which considering Jacob Baum had been the general foreman for Victor, no big surprise there. Also, there were several little known small safe companies in Cincy during this era, of which I have never seen any examples. As Baum had split off from Victor, these other companies quite possibly were former employees of the larger companies like Victor.