1880s Hall's Safe & Lock Safe with Two Timers -- Seeking Information for Museum

kschlawin

Hello!
I’m a new member seeking information about an old safe. Brief background: I work as a volunteer historical interpreter at Living History Farms in central Iowa. One aspect of our living museum is an 1875 rural Iowa town site (Walnut Hill), in which there is a restored bank from the time period. In this bank sits an early 1880s Hall’s Safe & Lock safe that original came from a small bank in Northwest Iowa. It has no combination dial on the door – everything is controlled by two timers. The approximate size is 40″ tall x 26″ wide x 23″ deep. We know essentially nothing about this safe, or the Hall’s company and seek information so we can explain the safe and how it was used to our guests. I have attached several photos of the safe. Thank you very much for any assistance you can provide. Kent in Iowa (USA)

Sorry, I don’t know how to flip the photos.

Regina

Sure someone else will chime in here with more knowledge and details, but the basics are:
Halls was a safe and vault company in Ohio from about that period. Lots of history to google on them and their off chutes.
The timers opened the door at a pre determined time. The second timer is there for redundancy. Kept the banker from being kidnapped in the middle of the night to open the safe. Inner chest has a high quality 5 wheel “premier” lock. Only accessible once the outer door was timed open,
A very nice Safe!

kschlawin

Thank you, Regina!
A colleague and I worked on this safe the other day and figured out how the safe gets “armed” and how the timers release the deadbolts. We just can’t understand how the timers get “wound.” We’ve also searched high and low on the internet and just can’t find much info at all about this type of Hall’s safe. We appreciate your help!

Doug MacQueen

The time lock door must be opened to wind the clocks. Some can be opened with a bent wire, others not so easily. Those clocks look like they wind in opposite directions. The correct direction will have spring resistance feel. They don’t require a lot of force when working properly. Often you need to put several hours on to make your test and both have to be wound up. DO NOT shut the door! DO NOT put you fingers anywhere on the boltwork when testing. That large back cover was added to prevent anything kept inside from jamming the boltwork and to protect your fingers when messing with the automatic. So now that you have a little general information regarding using automatic bolt motors, how about some clearer pictures and a description of what you have found so far. I may be able to help further. Doug

kschlawin

Thanks, Doug!
On Thursday, we removed the decorative/protective cover over all the deadbolt components and learned how the hand wrench “sets” the lock. And we figured out how the sprockets on the timers released the mechanism so as to unlock the safe door. Next Thursday (the day a friend and I volunteer), we’re going to clean up the entire inside of the door, etc.

However, we still don’t understand how the timers are wound. We don’t see any “key hole” like most clocks of that era have. We can easily open the timer door and have access to the timer faces and “hands.” And they move with a little effort.

I will take some better photos of the inside of the door (without the cover) and of the timers. But it will be Thursday night before I can post anything.

Thanks very much for your help!

Kent

kschlawin

Attached are a few more photos, which will hopefully show you the inside of this Hall’s safe.
We have carefully cleaned the entire mechanism on the inside of the door and it works fairly well. We did a test and one timer works fine; the other doesn’t move. We figured out that the timers are timers, not clocks, and that you simply set them to how many hours of time the safe should be locked until it automatically opens (previously, we thought they were clocks which you wound and set to an “open-up time.”

Any further information on this great safe would be appreciated. We had been told by someone that a safe such as this was what “discouraged” Jesse James from a bank raid in Northfield, Minnesota. If anyone knows about that, please share.

Thanks very, very much!

00247

Here is an interesting read about it:

https://books.google.com/books?id=aTghCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1353&lpg=PA1353&dq=jesse+james+northfield+mn+what+brand+safe&source=bl&ots=BU6oAn-Ygb&sig=fWuZEyvcwvDeLRbaqFhZfD0pcdE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDkbyg0LnSAhWV3oMKHSf7BVwQ6AEIODAF#v=onepage&q=jesse%20james%20northfield%20mn%20what%20brand%20safe&f=false

kschlawin

Thank you!

Doug MacQueen

Yes I should not have used the word clocks, as the individual timers are called movements. Usually a stopped movement is cured by a clean and lube job. The brass box would contain the heavy springs that move the boltwork. It is usually unwise to mess with the spring box unless there is a real need to do so. Small ones like yours are not quite so dangerous as larger ones, but unless you have experience with them, they are better left alone. Nice picture on that door. It looks like you have a version of Woolley’s patent bolt motor. A slightly earlier one is seen on page 229 of “American Genius”.