Researching a Massive Collection Once Held by Y&T (many photos)

[Schuyler]

Hey, all. It's been too long! The collection I'm working with right now spans thousands of years, so I figured I would toss it here in Pre-Industrial (though several of the items are squarely made in the industrial revolution or even post-industrial). A bit of background, or just skip to the end for the link to the Flickr Album.

In January of last year I was attending a conference in Chicago where I met the head of acquisitions for the Museum of Science & Industry. She happened to overhear me talking locks with someone and introduced herself. She told me that the museum had just been approached by a widow who wanted to donate her husband's lock collection, but that they didn't really know what to do with it, or if they should bother. All I knew at the time was that he was an employee of Yale & Towne. Being that I have a very specific interest in Y&T (distant relation to the T) I put on the best show I could to convince her to acquire the locks. Then, I heard nothing for a year. This January I was back in Chicago for the same conference when I received an email saying that the locks had been acquired, and it wasn't just Yale locks, but a huge collection of locks from around the world over the past couple thousand years, and would I like to come unbox them for a small audience.

It was probably the worst talk I've ever given because I was so engrossed in the locks themselves and basically ignoring the attendees. The staff at the MSI had done some early work to establish that this was only 1/3rd of what had been a massive collection assembled by the Yale & Towne company over the course of about 90 years. They knew that another 3rd was held by the Stamford Museum in Stamford, CT, and that the final 3rd was still in private hands, but they were trying to find it.

Since then I've been on the hunt for any and all information I can find. It's been going very well, and I can sketch out a rough picture of what this collection was like in the 1950s. The wife of one of the directors at Y&T was deeply immersed in the modernist art scene and approached her husband about doing a collaborative project with several prominent artists & Y&T. This became the "Style & Security" exhibit which toured the country at art galleries, museums, and universities. It featured the expansive Y&T lock collection, with commentary, and several examples of modernist art relating to locks. In particular, handles & escutcheons sculpted by the likes of Mirko and Fernand Leger.

Then, and I'm not sure why, yet, the entire collection was disbanded in the early 1960s (before the World's Fair in NYC, where Y&T had a booth. I was really hoping they had displayed the collection there.) The story goes that one third was donated to the Stamford Museum, where it was briefly displayed before being boxed & stored in an attic, and the other two thirds were to be discarded. Thankfully 2 gentlemen at the company instead decided to split the remaining thirds between them.

I was able to pop over to the Stamford Museum recently to photograph their portion of the collection, which, to anyone's knowledge hadn't been properly photographed before. I'm still filling in whatever details I can find as I go along, but am taking a break to make this post. I'll be back in Chicago in June to interview the Widow and photograph their third. I don't know what will become of all of these locks, but I think the curators at the MSI, the director of the Stamford, and I, would all like to see them re-assembled & touring again at some point in the next few years.

Here are the photos from the Stamford collection: https://www.flickr.com/photos/schuyl...57644157310684

This is an ongoing project that will likely take me a couple years to complete, but I'll try to update my progress here once in a while.

[Gerry]

very interesting...
please keep on searching

i am wondering that an us-museum gives a permission to
display the collection in internet, in europe we often
have problems to take photos in the showrooms just for
private use.

[Tom Gordon]

very interesting...
please keep on searching

i am wondering that an us-museum gives a permission to
display the collection in internet, in europe we often
have problems to take photos in the showrooms just for
private use.

What an amazing story.
In the UK, Parkes had a staggering collection too which "disappeared" when foreigners bought the company.
We must all keep searching for old ladies
wearing black. There is always hope.

[Gerry]

is this one of the missing keys from parke-collection?

[Schuyler]

Thanks, Adrian!

So, had the interview with Yolanda Pope yesterday, widow of the late Paul Charles Pope, who was the director of Marketing for Y&T's (and later Eaton Y&T) European & other International markets. She was incredibly gracious to give me 3 hours of her time, during which I learned a lot about their life together, his travels with the company, and how he came into possession of 1/3rd of the Y&T collection. I haven't transcribed the interview, yet, and a lot of our time was devoted to fairly personal stories about their lives that probably won't be appropriate to share publicly, though I do hope she'll let us include some of it if we ever get to exhibit the collection again, as I think it adds a lot of personality to the story.

When I get the transcription done I'll report back with dates and places, but she confirmed that the portion of the collection he had was supposed to be disposed of. She said the exact language used was "Go throw these in the Hudson River", and while she doesn't have an exact date, I think we can narrow it down based on his various assignments, as her family was moved around quite a bit. For now I can somewhat confidently say he took the locks sometime around 1960-1963. She doesn't know who gave him the order, but we do know now that at that time he worked directly under Leo Pantis in Greenwich, Connecticut, who may have had the title of General Manager or Vice President of something. I'm not 100% on that last name, as we don't have a hard spelling of it, but it certainly sounds like "Pantis".

Mrs. Pope has also offered to reach out to the wife of man who took the other 3rd of the collection, though she warned us not to expect much, as she doubts that she would still have any of the pieces. So, 2/3rds may be all we get, but its still a lovely collection.

No new photos from this trip, sorry. I need to work out how the MSI wants to deal with rights management, and as they are a much larger organization than the Stamford, it sounds like its going to be a much longer process involving lawyers. We'll see what happens!

I also have a growing collection of documentation I need to go through, but haven't had the chance yet, as I've been traveling around doing workshops to fund this research (neither Museum is paying me, so this is all out of pocket at the moment) and the next trip will be in July to the University of Connecticut for a week to go through the Y&T company records. I'll start going through the documentation in the meanwhile and report back!

[BBE]

Hey, all. It's been too long! The collection I'm working with right now spans thousands of years, so I figured I would toss it here in Pre-Industrial (though several of the items are squarely made in the industrial revolution or even post-industrial). A bit of background, or just skip to the end for the link to the Flickr Album.

In January of last year I was attending a conference in Chicago where I met the head of acquisitions for the Museum of Science & Industry. She happened to overhear me talking locks with someone and introduced herself. She told me that the museum had just been approached by a widow who wanted to donate her husband's lock collection, but that they didn't really know what to do with it, or if they should bother. All I knew at the time was that he was an employee of Yale & Towne. Being that I have a very specific interest in Y&T (distant relation to the T) I put on the best show I could to convince her to acquire the locks. Then, I heard nothing for a year. This January I was back in Chicago for the same conference when I received an email saying that the locks had been acquired, and it wasn't just Yale locks, but a huge collection of locks from around the world over the past couple thousand years, and would I like to come unbox them for a small audience.

In January 1990, I went to work for Yale as the Key Records Manager at their world headquarters in Monroe, NC. On the second or third day there I was given the grand tour by the curator of the collection, (which was displayed in glass cases in the hallways), who was also in charge of the physical plant. The collection was extensive. Some of the highlights were the 8 masterpiece locks, various locks and padlocks with unique mechanisms, and an Egyptian style door lock inlaid with gold and mother of pearl that was said to be from the palace of Hadrian, (yes, the one of the wall around 1400 BC). At the end of the tour he asked me what I thought it was all worth and I told him around $200,000.00. He said they had a professional appraiser evaluate it 2 years earlier who came up with the same value. If everything were still there I’m sure the value has doubled by now. The curator also showed me an itemized inventory of the collection then so I find it hard to believe that the collection was ever broken up to the extent you have been told.

The Yale & Towne lock collection was obtained from the daughter of an Austrian Count Andreas Dillinger. The Count was famous for having the most important collection in Europe. A world famous locksmith from New York City, Charles Courtney, arranged the sale after the Count’s death in order that the collection would have a safe home in the US. That was around 1937 and the daughter was worried by the rumors of impendingwar. You can verify that and even get a partial listing of the locks in the collection from his book “Unlocking Adventure”.

There were also a number of safe deposit locks and other older Yale products on display in glass cases but to me the product literature and catalogs that filed around 8 three foot bookshelves in one of the hallways.

The curator told me that through the years and different owners of the company some of the executives had taken some of the medieval door locks and installed them in the houses in the Monroe/Charlotte, NC area. He said there were also some locks in boxes in a store room but I didn’t get to see them.

In 1991 Yale was purchased by Williams Holding of England and I was transferred to the plant in Lenoir City, TN to get the key milling and bitting departments running smooth. About six months later one of my people back in Monroe told me that one of the Williams managers had the shelves with the literature and catalogs thrown into the dumpster.

Later Yale was purchased by ASSA Abloy and I was told recently that the collection has been moved to CT. The person didn’t know if it was to the old Corbin plant or to the Sargent plant. ASSA Abloy owns both of them.
BBE.

[Gerry]

"an Egyptian style door lock inlaid with gold and mother of pearl that was said to be from the palace of Hadrian, (yes, the one of the wall around 1400 BC). "

i have never seen lock from this time
how does it looks like?

[Tom Gordon]

Hadrian lived 76 AD – 10 July, 138 AD

[BBE]

Hadrian lived 76 AD – 10 July, 138 AD

The date I gave came from Courtney's book. The Emperior did build a famous Arch in a town that dates back to 1400 BC, so maybe he just got confused.

As for the other question, the inlaid lock was fairly small, being 8" by 8" and about 1 1/2" thick. There was of course a bolt that went through the housing but I don't remember the key being present. It may have been a lock for an interior door with that size.
BBE.

[Adrian Weber]

I find the post of BBE most interesting where as Schyuler just posted some information a long with pictures but will most likely never respond to any of our posts. The historical content of his post is very vague where as BBEs post sheds a bit of light into the dark. The pictures are great though.

Thank you BBE for that great post it is always a pleasure to learn from your extensive knowledge. I would be honored if I could meet you one day

Adrian