Errors in 'American Genius'

Jack Sullivan · 2011-08-08T03:06:28+00:00

In Chapter 2, p. 56, ’D. M. Smith’s Bank Lock,' there is reference to Smith’s patent as ‘footnote #27.’ In the Notes section, on p. 347, however, the patent citation is found in ‘footnote #26’ as US6878 issued to 3 April 1849. That patent number, however, is not for a lock but rather for an ‘ox-yoke.’ Assuming that the given publication date was correct I did locate the Smith patent as US6272. How 6272 became 6878 is a puzzle as it can hardly be attributed to mistyping as the numbers involved on the typical QWERTY keyboard are quite separate. It & the misnumbered footnote appear to be just the inevitable products of sloppy proofreading while this book was being finalized for publication. In a bit of serendipity I happened upon another bank lock patent issued on the same date: US6252 to Ritchie. This patent is mentioned in "American Genius’ on page 68 as ‘footnote 48’ (p. 347) but with the inventor’s name misspelled as ‘Ritchey.’ Jack

Jack Sullivan

Jack Sullivan wrote
Described on p. 124, ‘…North and Isham found that Stewart Perry of Newport, New York, had patented (Footnote #40, p. 349) his own keyless lock.’ Footnote #40 does refer to patents US17293 and US20658, both to ‘S. Perry.’ Both patents are issued to Stuart Perry.

Jack

The footnote data for the New Britain Bank Lock Co.'s Isham-Pillard Bank lock described on pp. 124-6 is very confused & would take me a major effort to try to straighten it all out.

Henry Isham & Oliver Pillard were lock engineers & inventors living in New Britain & associated with this company, though patent assigments were apparently not used in the time period involved here & these men were not formal employees until some later date. Patents US15239 1 July 1856 ‘Permutation Lock’ & US17740 7 July 1857 ‘Permurtation Lock’ boh to Isham appear to relate to this lock (photo on p. 125) but both patents involve both keys & keyholes while the book describes this as a ‘keyless’ lock. I also been believe that the Pillard’s dial combination lock patent is US71639 issued 3 December 1867 . This information is not footnoted though this lock is mentioned in the text.

[unknown]

Jack Sullivan

This New Britain Bank Lock Co.'s lock is described on pp. 128-129 without a footnote to reference the patent. In my files Pillard was issued a patent for a ‘Permutation Lock’ on 8 September 1868, US82030, assigned to Frederic H. North, owner of that company. This patent refers to improvements in tumbler design to those taught in US71640 issued on 3 December 1867 to James H. Porter (‘Improvements in Adjustable Tumblers for Permutation Locks’) & also assigned to Frederic H. North. I’m making the assumption that the 1868 Pillard patent refers to the subject lock.

Jack

Jack Sullivan

This lock, described on pp.173-4 contains several footnotes referring to important patents but there are no patent references in the Notes (p. 349). Rather they refer to patent lawsuit records or other publications commonly not available to the average reader.

‘…a design by Charles O. Yale.’ FN #46. This patent is US174996 to Yale issued 21 March 1876 & assigned to Herring & Co.

‘…with improvements by Jacob Weimar.’ FN #47. This is patent US210070 issued 19 November 1878 & assigned to Herring & Co.

‘As was common…Herring seems to have begun producing its Infallible prior to the patent award. This led to what was…the first time lock patent lawsuit, filed by Sargent & Greenleaf in December 1875 immediately after receiving a patent reissue.’ FN #49. This is Reissue USRE6787 issued 7 December 1875 to S W Hollen & assigned to James Sargent.

Jack

Jack Sullivan

Jack Sullivan wrote
This lock, described on pp.172-3 contains several footnotes referring to two important patents (FN# 46 & # 47 on p. 350). I was in error regarding these being missing in my last posting. They can be found on p. 350.

‘As was common…Herring seems to have begun producing its Infallible prior to the patent award. This led to what was…the first time lock patent lawsuit, filed by Sargent & Greenleaf in December 1875 immediately after receiving a patent reissue.’ This is Reissue USRE6787 issued 7 December 1875 to S W Hollen & assigned to James Sargent.

Jack

This is a correction of the last post.

Jack

[unknown]

Dean Nickel

Jack…. why don’t you write a book? This would be great for us collectors from someone that has shown you care about the details.

wylk

I wonder if the Errolls would consider an errata list, kept online as a kind of blog. And/or incorporating these into a second edition.

Jack Sullivan

wylk wrote
I wonder if the Errolls would consider an errata list, kept online as a kind of blog. And/or incorporating these into a second edition.

This is basically a flashy coffee table book, in my opinion. Pretty pictures, but who besides a handful of people like those on this forum would ever bother to analyze the IP documentation for a bunch of antique locks? It might be worth the effort to email the editor but in my experience mass market books like this seldom get reprinted…especially with many highly technical corrections that the publisher would have to pay someone to verify.

Jack

[unknown]

Jack Sullivan

This device, described on pp. 262-267, does not give a reference to the patents involved in this industrial design. The ceramic movement dials each mention ‘Stockwells’ Patent of July 19 1892. This is US479379 to father/son team of Emory & Herbert Stockwell with some aspects of the commercial locks being reflected in Herbert Stockwell’s patent US665374 of 1 January 1901.

I own a late production example of this time lock, movement serial numbers 13498, 13499 & 134500. The movements are likely Seth Thomas’ manufacture. Photos shown below. Production of the ‘Triuple L’ is stated in the book to have continued until the ‘1920s.’

Jack

Doug MacQueen

In the interest of keeping some semblance of logic on this forum, thus making it both more user friendly and of more value to the users, this thread should be moved to the “books in print section” and not buried here in the “ Misc/Everything else” section. Additionally, posts such as the previous one really should be in the “timelock” section. There is already way too much “stuff” buried in posts on A-L. Doug Now if I could only find where I put the Linus Yale Jr. dissertation?

Jack Sullivan

Doug MacQueen wrote
In the interest of keeping some semblance of logic on this forum, thus making it both more user friendly and of more value to the users, this thread should be moved to the “books in print section” and not buried here in the “ Misc/Everything else” section. Additionally, posts such as the previous one really should be in the “timelock” section. There is already way too much “stuff” buried in posts on A-L. Doug Now if I could only find where I put the Linus Yale Jr. dissertation?

While I understand your suggestion, perhaps it would have been better made at the start of this long thread than here 5 pages along. I have no problem with your suggestion but I believe that the mechanics for implementing this change are in the domain of the forum Administrator(s). They certainly have been aware of this thread & it is perhaps to them that you should be directing your comments.

All the posts in this thread have on-topic for errors in ‘American Genius’ and cross into a number of different forum areas where individual posts unconnected by that common thread might be better placed. All these materials are accessible here via the search function. Observing the high number of visits logged to date regarding this thread, it seems to be as popular as ‘American Genius’ & no one else has raised any objections, including the forum Administrator(s).

Jack

[unknown]

wylk

If anybody is looking for their own copy of this fine book (in spite of the errors) I noticed there are currently three copies on eBay, one for $21.21 with free shipping. Search for “american genius locks” without the quotes.

« Previous Page