Mosler Safe & Lock 1887 Time Lock

I picked up this time lock on eBay this evening. It appears to be an example of the title time lock with a number of differences from the photos shown on pages 232 & 233 of American Genius. As can be seen in the attached pix, the door window cutout has the same pattern but lacks the through-door winding eyelets. It also lacks the damascening shown in the book. Otherwise it appears to be the same lock.

This lock was based on the design of Phineas King of Beard & Brother of St Louis. I am attaching screenshots of the 2 patents issued to King for this design. Beard & Borother sold their patent rights to Mosler in 1887.

I'm looking for information on the door key for this lock. The winding arbors look to take standard winding keys.

Any comments concerning this lock would be appreciated. Thanks!

Jack

There is a brief but interesting writeup concerning this lock in Mark Frank's interesting web pages MY-TIME-MACHINES. See MOSLER 2mvt. It states that over 400 were nade featuring the nickel-plated case & without the damascening on the central dial (AMERICAN GENIUS, p. 232). It further states that only five of this design are known to survive today, perhaps making this a very good catch.

Jack

So you're the rotten guy who outbid me on the timelock. Nice score. I think you will find when you get it that it is a Beard Bros. timelock. Thats why I was bidding on it. I already have the Mosler version. I remember looking at the the views on Ebay and zooming in on the engraving and seeing Beard engraved behind the dial. So it must be prior to 1887 manufacture.

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Originally Posted by jacobrules

So you're the rotten guy who outbid me on the timelock. Nice score. I think you will find when you get it that it is a Beard Bros. timelock. Thats why I was bidding on it. I already have the Mosler version. I remember looking at the the views on Ebay and zooming in on the engraving and seeing Beard engraved behind the dial. So it must be prior to 1887 manufacture.

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Wow! Neat. Thanks for the feedback. So I can conclude that the through-door winding eyelets were a later Mosler improvement on the Beard & Brother (not Brothers) lock. That helps explain a number of things that differ between the book pix & the poor eBay (out-of-focus) pix. The identical shape of the window opening makes me suspect that Mosler may have acquired a stock of parts and/or tooling along with the King patent rights (and King as well).

FWIW I was surprised to bag this one for under $700 when my seat-of-the-pants estimate of its value was at least twice that amount. I thought the auction would definitely go above $1K. I would assume that the pre-1887 Beard & Bro. version would be worth considerably more than a later Mosler version.

From AMERICAN GENIUS pages 206-207 there is a Beard & Bro. Type 2 which differs from the eBay lock in several major respects, such as bottom release instead of side & lack of the (assumed) damper piston at the lower left. I have been unable to locate an image of a Beard & Bro. Type 3. According to the book, only a single example of the Type 3 exists, in the Harry Miller collection. I plan to contact them to see if an image of it might be available. If it does turn out to be a Type 3, I think I'll keep it in a safety deposit box!

Jack

I attached pics of my Mosler version for your review.

I have been trying to upload one more pic but it fails everytime. Oh well it was a close up of the Mosler lettering behind the dial.

Attachment 5011

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Originally Posted by jacobrules

I attached pics of my Mosler version for your review.

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Wonderful pix. Thanks!

My Beard & Bro. time lock was accepted by the USPS today & is hopefully well on its wat to me now. I plan to take a number of closeup detail photos for later posting.

I hope to be able to compare it with the sole existing example of a Beard & Bro. Type 3 said to be in the Harry Miller collection.

Jack

As my lock has been (correctly) identified as a product of Beard & Brother rather than Mosler, I'm terminating this thread & starting a new thread with a more correct title.

Jack