Unusual Vault Door in Pennsylvania

wylk

I ran across an unusual old vault door at 10 Exchange Place in West Grove, Pennsylvania. The building dates to 1883, so the door may be from the same era. It’s now Twelves Grill and Cafe and is thus quite approachable for inspection.

As was common, there is a primary door which we can see fairly well, then there is a two-piece secondary door beyond that (which we can’t see at all well). The primary door is interesting because of the way the locking bolts are held by the boltwork, with two grooves each. There is a time lock that is obviously not original which isn’t surprising. The two large combination locks have been cut open, most likely gutted, and two modern (S&G?) safe locks dropped in as replacements. And on the far right, halfway down, is a strange pair of “jaws” I haven’t seen before (they look like Pac-Man) and I can’t tell how they operated.

Can anybody identify the maker of this door?

Of course, any other comments would be welcome too!

David Hovey

Jim, I searched my database and only came up with one. The actual door bolts are missing but you can see the carrier bar fixtures are the same. Must be a very early design because I don’t see the standard violin bolt work cam plate extensions.

See attached.

wylk

David Hovey wrote
Jim, I searched my database and only came up with one. The actual door bolts are missing but you can see the carrier bar fixtures are the same. Must be a very early design because I don’t see the standard violin bolt work cam plate extensions.

Beautiful! Thanks for the find. I’ll scrutinize it tomorrow but it does look like a close enough match.

[unknown]

wylk

I’d have to say the vault door I found must be a Farrel, it’s quite similar to the safe image you found. I assume that the right-hand wheel says “FARRELS PATENT”, there is just a bit of “T” in the image.

But I did not find a patent. However, I did find a patent for John Farrell, assigned to A. Farrell of Philadelphia, for a steering-wheel lock (US patent 1,470,823). Note the spelling difference. The company was part of the merger that led to Herring-Hall-Marvin.

The safe is interesting because it has a sort of compound hinge that allows the door to be closed in a direction parallel to the opening, much like a crane hinge and pressure system on large vault doors. Notice the handle on the top hinge. See US patent 153,348.

Thanks again for sharing your discovery.