Diebold (?) door?

[wylk]

On a recent trip I had the nerve to walk into a current Bank of America and asked to see their very nice old vault door. Rather than calling security and the FBI, the bank manager was so very kind to not only let me look at it and photograph it, but he also arranged to open it (they don't bother unless a customer needs access to a safe deposit box which is very occasional these days). I'm going to avoid pointing out which BofA this is.

The first thing I learned is that an adjacent coupon room had the "outside end" of the ventilator which also included a viewing port in addition to an air/water/food port:



The main event of course was the door which included an emergency door. From existing images I expected a Herring-Hall-Marvin door of the "twisty" (my nickname) variety. But the locks are Diebold (with two patent dates in 1870/1871 that point to three patents; I believe the building was constructed in 1908) and the time locks are Diebold.



Some of the details are (as usual) interesting. The central round plate is etched "Built By Diebold Safe and Lock Co. Canton O." but notice it's held in place with Phillips-head screws? I didn't think Phillips-head even existed in 1908. So those are modern screws; is the plate too? Notice the springy mounting plate for the time lock itself. The locks are marked "Anti-Dynamite" but I didn't get a picture of that. The connecting rods do not have HHM's turnbuckles but that might just be the era they are from. And notice that to snake around the combination locks, two of the connecting rods have elegant "dog legs" to pass over the upper lock, while only one is dogged for the lower lock.

There is an old antique-locks thread about a door that seems clearly HHM but that Diebold seems to have rebranded later, see http://www.antique-locks.com/showthr...r-sale-on-eBay. Is this a more carefully rebranded HHM or did Diebold copy the "twisty" boltwork for a short time?

Another detail is that the floor originally had a drop segment. That was removed along with the rest of the raised floor at some time and now you have to step up to get into the vault.

[Doug MacQueen]

Wylk, I am glad to hear you are getting some in person experiences with these vaults after all the hard work you have put into compiling info on them. Your "twisty" is a Benjamin Tripp, Boston vault engineer design built by HHM. Patent no. 816,049, 1906. The other, built by Diebold, is most likely also a Tripp door. Doug

[Chubby]

What an attractive day gate, too.

[Huw Eastwood]

Very ornate and some great patina on the door front!
The air, food and water port looks a whacky bit of kit, unusual. Great pictures.

[wylk]

Doug, thanks for your insight into Tripp being the designer/engineer. This seems similar to the situation with Emil Strauss (discussed several times in other threads) who also had his own boltwork design (US patent 869,992). Strauss would then subcontract with Diebold/Mosler/York to build the doors. Just for reference, Strauss' design (image by James Howe):



In Tripp's case the same now seems to be true. Though a majority of these doors appear to be HHM (and I now see I could be wrong here!) at least some of them were built by Diebold and possibly others.

Is that a good generalization? Could the earlier Fort Worth door have been truly made by Diebold rather than rebranded?