Herring and Co. Bankers safe fresh out of the garage

[vytautus]

Hello all, I have been looking things up on the site for a while. I just finally joined. I just recently purchased this Herring and Co. bankers safe. I was wondering if any other members had similar safes. I am trying to track down the serial numbers of similar safes. Currently the safe is not open. I bought the safe in Deer Lodge Montana where it had been shuffled around since new. I found an original article about when the safe arrived in Deer Lodge in the 1872 Newspaper. Most of the info lines up but the safe has a 78,000 range serial number. From what I have read and been told that would put it closer to 1890 based Herring & (Farrel) Co. advertisements. Does anyone have any dated advertisements featuring this style of safe? I included the article from the newspaper. I will try to get a smaller picture of the safe up as well.

[vytautus]

picture of safe

[Tom Gordon]

If the earlier date stands, that is only 5 years after the English safemaker Chatwood ripped apart Herrings best safe in a contest at the Paris Exhibition.

[Doug MacQueen]

Let it go Tom, just let it go. Not clear why the date would be questioned given the written info from the time.

[Tom Gordon]

1. Let it go Tom, just let it go. Not clear why the date would be questioned given the written info from the time.

I do wonder if it is a triple bankers safe because the hinges don't look manly enough for the weight which the door would be on a 3 tonne safe.
have you weighed it to check?
on both sides of the Atlantic safes top level safes were much improved after that exhibition, so it could indeed be a very good safe - and how were you thinking of opening it given that it could be a very good safe?

[vytautus]

I just like to be thorough and wanted to try to figure out the Herring serial numbers because I believe this is the safe from the article. Deer Lodge at that time was only a town of about 5,000. Not many 1000.00 safes. It has only had 3 owners before me. The bank in the article, A huge corporate ranch and the guy I purchased it from. It is more interesting to me than usual because the local Western American History. The W.A. Clark in the article went on to found Clark County, Nevada and Las Vegas. He was also the Montana Copper King a few years later and had the biggest house on 5th ave. in New York. The "Book Empty Mansions" was about his daughter Huguette.


Yesterday, I cleaned it a little. The original color is Aluminum silver with gold leaf, black, red and blue pinstripes. Here is a picture of the inner door from another similar safe that I found on the board here.


Don't Be too hard on Tom he can't help it he just has that cranky Gordon streak. My name is Lochlan Gordon so I know we can be a difficult lot.

[vytautus]

Tom,

We have one old retired manipulator I know of. He used to work for Mosler. That will be the first try. I really don't want to drill it.

[Tom Gordon]

that safe does appear to have similar hinges but I wonder if that thickness of body in that size would add up to 3 tonnes.
Over here, we prefer to describe ourselves as fiercely Celtic (with the accent on fierce) 😺

[vytautus]

Yes, fiercely Celtic a good description! The weight is extreme for its size. It was all I could do to roll it on concrete on its wheels using an 8ft 4"x4", for a lever, about an inch at a time. The back body plate is at least 3 inches thick you can see the weld line. I still have it on the trailer. I will see if I can weigh it just for curiosity sake. I had an 1956 international pick up on the trailer a month ago the truck worked less dragging it than it did with the safe on.

[Tom Gordon]

Yes, fiercely Celtic a good description! The weight is extreme for its size. It was all I could do to roll it on concrete on its wheels using an 8ft 4"x4", for a lever, about an inch at a time. The back body plate is at least 3 inches thick you can see the weld line. I still have it on the trailer. I will see if I can weigh it just for curiosity sake. I had an 1956 international pick up on the trailer a month ago the truck worked less dragging it than it did with the safe on.

A weldline in 1872??