Check out my new HHM find! Can you date it and give me some info?

[Pete]

And I have a funny story about the combination.

So it is a HHM painted an ugly brown inside and out with wheels hidden underneath. No pinstripes or any art. Everything works well and door shuts flush. Dial wobbles slightly but doesn't bind anywhere. The paint isn't great. It's in good shape where it didn't get nicked. The corners and back are chipped in a few places. And the paint in the inside corner had peeled off. I think it may have had a slight humidity problem. It was sold by the East Safe & Equipment Co. Philadelphia. It has a small metal lock box with one shelf and the lock is made by Eagle Lock Co., Terryville, CONN. The key is numbered 54PQ17. The outside dimension are 21-1/2Hx15-1/2Wx16D. The inside dimensions are 16Hx12Wx11D.

I am so happy to be adding it to my collection. (It is only #2, so does that count?) So I want to know most importantly when it was made and about how much do you think it is worth? Then I'll tell you what I paid for it... if I'm not embarased for what I paid.

So when I picked it up the guy had the safe open and had the combo written down. His father had just died and he said after going to the last number it clicks, but then you sometimes have to go a hair down or up to get it to work. I thought I can't wait to go home and take out the inside panel and see what is going on. So I find after spending a half hour trying to get inside, that the dial needed to be turned back the other direction to move the locking mechanism. I am so proud of myself.

[Doug MacQueen]

Maybe someone here knows when that HHM logo was used. I think I see a UL tag on the top. My best guess doesn't narrow it down any better than 1920's pre Depression to post WWII. Sorry but I don't pay that much attention to safes I work on every day. It's the ones I don't see often that get my interest. Doug

[Dean Nickel]

I will go with Doug on the timeline. The tags look right for that time frame (I have a record safe from that time).

[Pete]

Thanks guys. Is that lock mechanism common, where it is used to set the combination, then also to move the bar that allows the safe to open? And also, when I took the back plate off where the combination is adjusted and there was a pin attached to the cover plate that put pressure on a tiny brass pin. Is that like a shear pin, so the safe won't open if the pin is broken? It seems too fragile to be part of the working mechanism.

And I guess there were catalogs with these safes pictured where you can just look at that year's catalog and say when it was made?

[Dean Nickel]

If you can give us a picture of the pin/lock you are talking about then we can tell you a bit more.

But for the most part there shouldn't be a whole lot of force on any part in a safe lock being it is only transferring the force of the dial into the lock. Its not like you can hammer on it from the outside. Now you can damage a safe lock by spinning the dial very fast and then stopping the dial. When dialing a safe you should never have your hand leave the dial and have the dial still in motion.

[Pete]

I knew I should have taken photos of the lock before I screwed the cover back on. Next time I feel like taking it apart I'll get some photos.