Thread: Hollar Round Door Vaults

Beautiful indeed. I assume those pre-date the locks where the winding mechanism and timelock are in the same case as in the Frank collection ?

Thank you for posting those.

Great pictures, any chance of posting a pic of the front of the door?

I believe I do have frontal shots at least of one of the doors. Unfortunately someone went crazy trying to clean it up and really made a mess of it which is why I didn't post the picture. The insides sure are nice though. I have some pics lots of other round and square doors I will post as I get a chance. I recently started a small repair project on the Cleveland Federal Reserve round door vault which is now a museum piece built by York Safe and Vault Co. in 1922-23. A truly massive door, 10 foot diameter and a solid thickness of 4 feet and I will post a few of it also.

They are great pictures Doug, well done and thanks for sharing them. Any more will be gratefully received.

Wikipedia has a very nice image of the Cleveland FRB vault door (look up "federal reserve bank of Cleveland"). Another image is in the book Monuments to Money, about bank architecture, in this case in the York factory. This does not mean we wouldn't appreciate more pictures!

Originally Posted by Doug MacQueen

Here's a couple very nice round doors made under Hollar's patent from the early 1900's. Hollar was a famous vault designer of Philadelphia, PA. The one with Hollar's patent automatic timelock winder above the timelock is a Hall's (Jos. Hall's sons) of Cincinnati, Ohio. The other is a L.H. Miller of Baltimore, Maryland whose father E.F. Miller was also in the safe business in Providence R.I. Both of these doors are using Yale Automatics, mentioned in John Erroll's book, American Genius.

I have come across a Hollar door w/time-clock winder. Door was booby trap with a canister with 2 vials of liquid. One somewhat clear and the other was brown. I have heard of doors having tear gas and/or nitro glycerin. Does any one know if that is what this door was manufactured with?

As far as I have ever heard nobody manufactured safes with explosives in them. If you think on it, it is really dumb idea because it will degrade over time and then BOOOM! Now on the tear gas I have heard that there was one or two out there and several after market kits made. The problem with this stuff is it also degrades and also can if the mix is right go BOOOM! I am not saying someone didn't make an after market explosive kit but it is not something I have heard a safe company doing.

Hey! thats what you call a safe door and that's some hinge. File:Cleveland FRB Vault Door.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just to set the record straight. Tear gas can not degrade into an explosive mixture. It is chemically imposable for the chemicals that are used to make CS (tear Gas) to change into any kind of a liquid explosive. Tear gas will change from a clear liquid to a yellowish or brownish color over the course of time in the glass tubes.