Chubb Trade Mark on Locks

Peter Gunn

This is a request for info from those of you with collections of Chubb Locks made before February 1876. Is the Trade mark Chub Fish shown along with the serial number, company name etc.?
Chubb first registered the Trade Mark including the words ‘Chubb London’, on 4th Feb 1876 (the ‘Chubb Wolverhampton’ variation was registered 18th July 1888) but there are suspicions that they were using the mark before these dates.
Your comments will be gratefully received.

Brian Morland MLA Hon

The earliest lock in the collection with the fish logo is 1114356, it’s a detector. I’m not sure of this locks exact date, and wondered if the approximate serial numbers for the two dates were know. (1876 for London and 1888 for Wolverhampton)

As can be seen in the picture its marked Chubb London on the fish itself as is normal. Having looked through all the Chubb locks in the collection I can find none marked Chubb Wolverhampton on the fish itself and would be interested to see a picture of this version of the logo.

Also on this lock, to the right of the Chubb’s Patent logo is a small cross and orb style logo and am curious as to the significance of this also.

Hope this is of some help Peter.

(Apologies for the condition of this lock, its not yet been cleaned)

Peter Gunn

Brian, Thanks for your response; my tables estimate lock # 1114356 was produced early in March 1887. Can’t help you re the ‘small cross & orb’ mark except to say it may have been the locksmith’s personal ID. I intend to put illustrations of both trade marks on www.chubbarchive.co.uk in the near future so keep your eyes peeled! Kind regards, Peter Gunn.

KitBear

The earliest lock with the fish logo in My collection is:

798014 (S 2)
6in Rim Deadlock
One sided
6 lever
Definitive
Right Hand

Perhaps Peter would be kind enough to explain the S2 on the bolt next to the serial number, Is this part of a group of locks sold or something?

KitBear

I’ve just taken some pics and uploaded the lock mentioned.

Paul Prescott

S XX (xx being numbers) in addition to a serial number means that the lock was part of a master keyed suite or set of locks.

This is confirmed by the presence of a ward in your lock.

I’d eat my hat if that fish logo is original. I’d bet good money that the lock was serviced by chubb at some point and stamped then.

KitBear

From what I can tell from the rest of my collection the fish logo is an early one, The fish has a smile on it (Good sense of humour) and the others are basically the same design, Perhaps you are right but I can’t imagine why a serviceman would want to stamp it without reason, It just seems pointless to me, Maybe chubb ordered to be done who knows.

I thought it would be part of a suite, It just appeared to be improbable to stamp it without reason which caught my attention, I have another lock which chubb altered the levers for the suite rather than using wards, This could be explained by a key hierarchy used on other locks in the suite, I just think that the series of locks in the suite with wards were made as to just prevent the insertion of keys into the lock thereby fooling the unsuspecting user into believing that the key wouldn’t open the lock when all he needed to do was a little filing, there is no evidence on the levers to indicate a MK suite.

Peter Gunn

The serial number dates to late April/Early May 1878. As Paul says, the mark ‘S2’ denotes the lock was part of a suite.
Regarding the Chubb Trademarks, these are shown on [URL=“http://www.chubbarchive,co.uk”]www.chubbarchive.co.uk[/URL] - see Chubb Story/Photographs.

Peter Gunn