Safeman this subject is worthy of its own discussion, so I’ve copied it here as the original will get overlooked and lost in whitepointer’s Australian Commerce thread.
My understanding is the same as yours in that it was two gents in the Ministry Security Team in particular, who not only conceived the use of the glass plate but also the whole concept of the Government and Ministry issue Grade 1A safes. They came up with the lock on glass and the primary and secondary boltwork, the reuleaux double drive cam and live relocking linkages that operate off it. The resulting Ministry issue Grade1A’s actually differed considerably from the publicly available Stratford, Tann and Ratner ‘cousins’.
Id go as far as to say I probably encountered most variations of the Ministry G1As, as I was thrown into these at a very young age and by 19 or 20 was going all over to service, repair, re-key and open them under all circumstances.
Unfortunetely I didn’t record numbers or dates off every single one but made tech drawings with makers name and DOM only when I saw a variation, so still have dated drawings for most in the 3 most common sizes of the 4 they made, the fourth being a rarely seen tall but narrow oddball.
The earliest I made notes on were indeed made by Stratford Safe like you say, and was dated 1967, and I have records of two other makers both both manufacturing them in 1968, one of which was John Tann.
As you know many different makers produced them and not only known safe manufacturers, but also a few very heavy engineering firms made them under contract as well.
As far as I know the Stratford’s were the first and from memory I think 1966 was the earliest I ever saw.
Externally they all deliberately looked identical, the very first early examples were a lot more basic inside with just one dead relocker off the glass and all had smooth round handles without the knurling (or ‘milled’ edge) adopted on the later safes.
By the mid 1970s they were at their peak in design and spec, and one 1980 SLS example always stuck in my mind for having 8 relockers and 3 glass plates, with the timelock not only covered by glass, but also blocking both the primary and secondary boltwork from both directions !
Seeing the pictures that you and Tim posted of glass plates not doing their job reminded me of the power of the springs on Grade 1A relockers, they didn’t mess about they had enough tension to put you on the moon and never failed to trigger.
Tbh the more I think back, I cannot think of another safe with such a massive and satisfying clunk to the boltwork as a Grade 1A, nothing comes close, the size and weight of the primary and secondary plates, all welded from over half inch thick 328 stainless steel was in a class of its own. It’s no wonder they were the ridiculous prices they were.
Anyway it’s beer time now, safeman I hope you don’t mind me making this thread from your post, cheers for a great subject that triggers lots of great memories for me.
ATB,
