Sargent Greenleaf C87 safe lock info?

Riyame

Hi Folks,

So I stumbled upon 2 S&G safe locks that I had never seen before so I snagged them up since the price was right. After some research (and a metric ton of luck) I believe they are S&G C87 models. I have not found them in any of my catalogs and my Google-fu has failed me. I managed to stumble upon a picture as I was reading through an article on Harry C. Miller and found one similar.

Would anybody be able to help me with dates when they were made? The only 2 references I found were to Stiffel-Freeman safes who were in existence from 1870-1920. One has the older round change key type while one has the newer square flag one. I believe they changed styles sometime around the 1950s or so?

Unfortunately I do not yet have them in hand so I can only use the sellers pictures. I can update the thread with better ones for the records once they arrive. One also is missing the linkage and the other appears to have a jimmy rigged wire clip holding it together instead of the fan like piece on the other lock. Hopefully those pieces are not all serialized so I can cobble together 1 complete lock.

Thank you for any help.

Doug MacQueen

Patented Feb 28, 1924, this lock doesn’t appear to have been made for very long before a major revision. The catalog pages are from 1927 showing the model name change from C87 to 6720 and 6730.

Riyame

Hi Doug,

Thanks for the info. I was looking through that catalog initially but those were so different I thought they were a completely different model and I forgot to check the model number change. The “new” change key hole on the 2nd lock also threw me since I thought they must have been made for quite a bit longer and was looking for something exactly like it.

David Hovey

I’ve been searching for original catalog information on the C87 for some time. C designation was very early S&G. On a safe opening, I did stumble across the patent for this lock. Feb 26 1924 was on the lock bolt.

In my travels I’ve never seen this lock with a very early designation engine turned finish and change key hole as yours.

Riyame

It is odd for sure. I have not been able to find anything showing this exact model, just the “updated” one. The 1927 S&G catalog includes a page showing that they got rid of the C designation and went with the new model numbers.

These both came with original dials but the sellers pictures were very fuzzy so I didn’t bother including them.

Doug MacQueen

Originally the locks had just a simple number designation and they were still using this in the 1901 catalog. At some point after 1901, but prior to the 1927 catalog, they started using the “C” system. Since the C87 (6720-6730) came out only a couple years prior to the 1927 catalog, it may have only appeared in one catalog. The 1901 was catalog No. 10 and the 1927 was catalog No. 21. I don’t find it too surprising to find the round change key hole in the back cover of the one lock as that was the standard for all the S&G key change locks of the time, although it shows it was one of the first ones made. I believe S&G brought this lock out to compete with the very popular Yale OC-5, which dominated the fire safe market in the 1920’s. Going back to the top drop lever style S&G, it then became the M 6730 and later still the R6730.