A truly stunning restoration
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A truly stunning restoration
Hi all,
Now I guess most of us are familiar with the Chancery Lane safe deposit vaults, blown up in WWII, part saved as the Silver Vaults today.
But this one is a new to me:-
The City Safe Deposit and Agency of Throgmorton Avenue, London EC. This advert I just purchased via eBay and it is dated 1893 from the Graphic a Weekly illustrated newspaper..
This makes it at least concurrent with the time my City Safe was made. But is there a connection I wonder, we did discuss the possibility that the title was a connection to London. The advertisment does not give any information to the makers of the strong rooms alas, but........ well it makes me wonder.
Attachment 20366
So you very knowledable locksmiths etc, any thoughts would be most interesting.
Best wishes, Steve
Hello again Steve. As you probably know the Chancery Lane Safe Deposit & Silver Vaults were completely rebuilt in a new location just off Chancery Lane by the John Tann Company in 1935 because of bomb damage fractures in the original vault.
The City Safe Deposit & Agency was constructed by the newly formed Ratner Safe Company as their first of many orders.
Attachment 20368 As soon as I read the term Congreave Steel on the attachment the name Ratner sprung to mind and I recalled the great number of Safe Deposits to Ratner's credit and their use of this Patented Drill Resistant material.
You see the name D R Ratcliff as the founder of Ratner. He was Wm Milner's son in law and ran that company for many years during the long running feud with Geo. Price.
Sorry no 'City' connection.
If anybody would know I should have guessed it would be you, thank you for the information. Okay it perhaps was a wish too far, but nice to have an answer either way.
Who knows maybe one day something will surface to give some clues or answers to this particular safe. Which incidentally is now finished and sat on a nice oak cradle with antique cast iron wheels and in my lounge.
Steve.
Steve, this is a photograph that wouldn't send earlier.
Attachment 20388 Obviously a sub-contract job to a real burner. Looks pretty early from what little can be seen of the boltwork mechanism.
I'm becoming more convinced that Whitfield and Milners' had a good relationship, not only the lock but the same supplier of hinges and the shared use of the anti-wedging blocks.
Attachment 20389 Attachment 20390 Was a natural takeover after the war by Milner.
Wow, someone went to town on that safe, burnt through on both sides, but what interested me the most is that it has the same hinges as mine, and that is the first one I have seen outside of advertisements. Second thought is the missing plate from the top of the door, being rectangular is puzzling as the early safes seemed to be ovals or complete armorial plaques in Samuel's days. The later ones had rectangular ones quite often Whitfield Safe and Door etc. I wonder if it had similar bolt work to mine, the hefty hinges must represent something as so few had them. The types on your other two photos being typical of most Whitfield's I have seen.
There's not much to go on Steve but inside the lock-case behind the handle is what looks like a form of circular scroll which, if I'm correct, will be to operate at least a three-way boltwork.
To emphasize the apparent strength of this safe it is possible to distinguish a laminate of four plates down the body edge probably ½"thick. This might include outer banding front and back and an inner layer of drill-resisting metal.
If so there would also have been similar protection in the door.
Yes, laminated framework is apparent. Looking at the right hand hole there appears to be a vertical bar, so I would agree that it is at least three way, and as that is offset probably with double verticals.
My safe door had a piece of chilled iron or something similar attached behind the lock as a protection against drilling, whatever it is, its very hard and not exatly nicely cut, but never seen so they didnt bother to make it pretty. It is visible in one of my photos on page-4 of this dialogue.
Going back to your photo, although you get a lot of slag with a burning torch, that is normally on the rear face, something else is going on on the front face of that door almost like it melted and ran down the front and its a very untidy bit of cutting which points to lamination, and at a guess from the photo I would say three layers, so with what maybe copper in a sandwich. Sounds pricy, but they did use it and it would explain why the cutting is lets face it, b'awful.......
Safeman you also reminded me of some later 4-bend and banded whitfield's which externally, looked like a List 3 Milners but without the recessed hinges. Saw a few, very similar they had a 6-lever down shoot lock with the Milners style double keyway but would often pick as they had no bolt thrower like the Milners or false notches. They had the later rectangular makers plate like Steve mentioned though, but very list3 to look at and always thought the similarity seemed too close for coincidence.
Steve,
It's really not such a bad effort when cutting on the vertical plane when there are double or triple layers to penetrate. It's takes some skill to make the cut through two plates simultaneously with quite a throw back of metal on the operator until the first penetration has been made as many scorched shirts testified.
In this case however it would appear that the plates were cut separately. If the inner plate was drill resisting the higher carbon content could have been an unwanted hindrance.
To the best of my knowledge copper was not introduced until just after WWI when the cutting torch came to be used against safes. Before that coal gas and hydrogen flames were only used to soften hardened anti-drill plates.
Assuming that this Whitfield was not opened legitimately it's not surplrising that good workshop practice was not the priority.