Ultimate & One-off Freestanding Safes

[oldlock]

Bit of an old thread - but I thought Chubb made some special Sovereigns with a stainless steel (not copper) pour ?

[Chubby]

I remember those old Chubb Sovereigns. The ratio of the dimensions was different from the heavy safes in their standard range. The colour scheme and everything was different- rather than just making an even heavier Bankers' Treasury they set out to do something new, and succeeded. I don't remember but presume they had the isolator boltwork.

[Adrian Weber]

Not really "super" thick and heavy but featuring a Kromer Protector Differntial lock

Quite a nice piece if you ask me, can be seen in the 125 years of Garny (1938) and 150 years of Garny (1963) book.

PS: I have never seen nor do I know if such a safe still exists.

Hope you enjoy!

Adrian

[Huw Eastwood]

Thanks safeman & Adrian. Keep them coming.....

The Rosengrens is amazing- I wonder what GP would have made of it..........I thus wonder, if indeed the heavy bolt work did move with such pleasantness as it's appearance?

I think we need a new thread on here for ornate safes like that. George price did perhaps have a valid point, but many were just simple surface adornments on what were already tough and proven safes underneath, so I think they have some importance and deserve a place in history.

A few of the old British manufacturers offered furniture and Ladies' jewel/boudoir safes, but they never seemed to match the ornamentation of the European manufacturers- Germany and Austria seemed to excel with them. Fichet also made some very ornate ones. in fact they still offered 'Louis' styled furniture safes into the early 1990s. They were based on one of their earlier compact production safes (JN20 or Egide? from memory)with the addition of cast steel 'cabriole' style legs and cast brass ornamentation. I remember being told that the wood grain effect wasn't laminated or applied veneer- it was actually hand painted on by a factory worker, and when he retired they simply dropped the range. I'll see if I can dig out a brochure- think the price was about £1200 for the bigger one back in about 1983.

safeman- that's amazing that a Tann Diamond was attacked- they might as well have turned up with pea shooters....

Adrian that's a great Garny safe- just when I thought there wasn't another style of bolt throw handle that hasn't been seen before you show that I've never seen the Differential version of the lock but have many Protectors- I have a soft spot for them. Most I've talked to had a real dislike for them because of the problems with re-keying and availability. The pipe keys needed regular cleaning as did the sliding shaft- that meant call-outs and work All the locks I saw were sealed to deter disassembly, but they were always so reliable it didn't really matter- to me at least, they were superb locks.

Also, it always amazed me how many safe engineers didn't seem to get the concept of the shuttle and shaft- it's ingenious- 6 inch thick door, 3 inch long key. Likewise, 25 inch thick door, still a 3 inch long key. Simply brilliant- no foot long key stems to bend or break, no fiddling with small detachable key bits etc, and yet I was told it's purpose was everything from anti-pick to anti-explosive. Don't think so- just 3 small exposed bezel screws on the front and the whole assembly could be removed clean out the door, so I don't think it's purpose was very anti-pick or anti-explosive. The safes always had big glass plates and plenty of relockers for the explosives side, and lets face it the Kromer Protector itself provided plenty of anti-pick!

Perhaps the early versions before the days of tempered glass plates, were fitted in such a way as to be immovable from the door. That I could understand would then give extra protection over the lock against picks and explosives, but the concept of a short compact high security key, no matter how big or thick the door is, to me at least is pure genius.

BTW before I get timed out yet again, the SLS gem is still up for sale despite a sale price of $50,000- Lackasafe still have it listed on their site with the caption "Everything proof"

[Huw Eastwood]

I think a John Tann Diamond would do me just fine.

Some other safes to consider from down this way would be the Wormald 8000 out of Australia. This is a full 6 sided Anti Arc Safe,with curved glass protecting the locks, plus complete Manganese shroud completely covering the entire locking area from all sides. I believe there were only 8 x Wormald 8000's made.

Ratner is another manufacturer who were based in Melbourne, Australia and made some very high spec custom made safes, and depending on the situation, had there safes inspected by a Lloyds representative during manufacture. I was lucky enough to visit the Ratner Factory on a number of occasions and witnessed some very out of control safes being manufactured. I believe Ratner was sold a few years back, and now no longer manufacture safes although I am not sure of this.

The Kingdom KZ Anti Arc series of safes out of New Zealand were also very well made, and the ones made in the late 1980's were very well engineered, and are an absolute nightmare to drill, even with modern drilling equipment.

These safes had to stand and defend for a long time, as there are some very remote locations in Australia and New Zealand that would not get a quick security response.

Brilliant Thanks Redoubt for posting these- more superb examples of ultimate safes I'd hoped we'd get to hear about.

Hopefully Brian can at some point move it over to the Ultimate & One-off Freestanding safes thread.

[safeman]

Brilliant Thanks Redoubt for posting these- more superb examples of ultimate safes I'd hoped we'd get to hear about.

Hopefully Brian can at some point move it over to the Ultimate & One-off Freestanding safes thread.

"stand and defend" Here's an example of such from Australia's Tann Agent in 1965.



Tann Bankers - you name it - they tried it. penetration, delamination.

Photographs by Johns & Waygood, Melbourne.

Certainly belongs in Ultimate. The Proof of the Pudding.

[Huw Eastwood]

Thanks Brian for moving these over here and safeman for more Tann annihilation!
thanks to safeone for finding and adding the Wormald 8000 info- deserves to be Here:



These are the very sort of safes that I'd hoped our overseas friends would reveal- those made to serve a market for extreme protection over and above their normal ranges. And, with some superb examples so far it just goes to show that there are many out there which would never have seen the shores of the UK or even mainland Europe.

Redoubt, brilliantly made point regarding the high levels of protection needed in the extremely remote locations of Australia and New Zealand.

While we have no such comparable extremes on a tiny island nation like Britain, it must be a major concern in those countries that do.
I've always believed this could've been a major influence behind such extreme British developments like the SLS Gem. The lure and sales potential of these small but potentially lucrative overseas markets being an attraction and possible 'safety net' well beyond what our home shores could offer.

[Chubby]

It is often repeated that given enough time, tooling, and if noise can be ignored, anything can be compromised. When I see an attack like that one, I wonder. They hadn't used a Kango. That is a real roadbreaking pneumatic drill in the foreground!

I once read an account of a gang who had been working on a Tann strongrom door all weekend with oxygen cutting equipment. They had cut the combination spindle but hadn't got in. So Tann were called and the door opened without trouble. The bad guys didn't even get the unit hot enough to trigger the thermal relockers!

[Safeone]

It is often repeated that given enough time, tooling, and if noise can be ignored, anything can be compromised. When I see an attack like that one, I wonder. They hadn't used a Kango. That is a real roadbreaking pneumatic drill in the foreground!

I once read an account of a gang who had been working on a Tann strongrom door all weekend with oxygen cutting equipment. They had cut the combination spindle but hadn't got in. So Tann were called and the door opened without trouble. The bad guys didn't even get the unit hot enough to trigger the thermal relockers!

Its the 'time' thing isnt it. As mentioned in previous posts the layers of electronic systems will be doing their job (or SHOULD be ) well before the attack tools are fired up.