Thanks for the insight, I hadn’t thought about “one-upping” Diebold. From what I can tell, Gustav arrived in the US in the 1840s, making shovels, then strong boxes, and worked for Diebold-Bahmann as a book-keeper. So you could stretch things a little bit and say Gustav was working in the security business by 1848. But still, the company itself (Mosler, Bahmann & Co.) wasn’t founded until 1867.
And even that could be disputed as a starting date for what we normally call “Mosler.” Although the Mosler history claims that after Gustav’s death in 1874 his sons Moses and William took over and renamed the company, Mosler-Bahmann continued to do business until at least 1898 (both are listed in a New York business directory, two blocks apart). Were they really the same company? I think not, since a patent-infringement case between the two companies went to the supreme court in 1888. Once again, they might have been searching for a defendably early start date that was more impressive than 1874, and even distorted the relationship between them and Mosler-Bahmann. Does anybody know what the final fate of Mosler-Bahmann was?
Back to 1848: Aside from National Geographic ads, I found some in Life magazine as well, which are available online via books.google.com. Go to their web site, click on one of the Life images, click “Search all issues” and search for Mosler. I think there are 4 separate ads that use the 1848 date. I do think it’s interesting that Mosler dropped the 1848 date and began using 1867, I wonder if Diebold “called them” on it.
My interest in all this began as a way to date their products and paperwork, it just kind of kept going. I enjoy trying to nail down dates and events in Mosler’s history (and S&G’s). Oh, and I do collect locks as well!
