Chubb Serial Number Dates

[Pierre Van Nechel]

I am in the possession of the safe in attached picture together with 2 original keys. Inside of the door shows info about the safe and/or lock. I have it from my grandfather who died 1969. I do not believe he bought it new.

Could you provide me with more info ?

Thanks for your help/support.

Pierre

[Brian Morland]

Hi Pierre and welcome.

Assuming your safe is cast iron, that plate would relate to the lock serial number (rather than a safe serial number) and therefore its date from the registers is 24th Oct 1836.

A nice early example, I'm sure members Huw and Safeman can tell us more about these early cast iron examples. Do tell us the safe dimensions and if you have pictures of the lock inner's we can see which version of the patent it is. The letters 'A' and 'D' on these early lock plates might be significant.

[Pierre Van Nechel]

Hi Pierre and welcome.

Assuming your safe is cast iron, that plate would relate to the lock serial number (rather than a safe serial number) and therefore its date from the registers is 24th Oct 1836.

A nice early example, I'm sure members Huw and Safeman can tell us more about these early cast iron examples. Do tell us the safe dimensions and if you have pictures of the lock inner's we can see which version of the patent it is. The letters 'A' and 'D' on these early lock plates might be significant.

Thanks Brian for this interesting info and letting me join the forum.
I'll post some dimensions and new pictures asap.

Kind regards,

Pierre
2.6.0.0

[KitBear]

That really would be interesting to see the mechanism considering the "New Patent" was patented in 1833.

[Brian Morland]

Thanks Kit, I should have spotted that, I may have looked in the wrong register. This is the period where some numbers were duplicated - just to add to the confusion and in some sections of the registers, but that's one reason we are doing all this to try and sort it all out!

I have revised date which could be: 24th Oct 1836 - might become clearer once we see the actual lock.

[Pierre Van Nechel]

Hello again. I managed to open the inside of the door that was held by 4 bolts. I opened the lock and took some pictures.

Dimensions of the safe :

72cm x 47 x 36 ( H x W x D) in cm (sorry for that)

This is what I found :

[Huw Eastwood]

Welcome Pierre, unable to add much other than to say yours is a wonderful example and a rarity fitted with such a nice lock as most of the cast iron chests and early upright safes were more basic.

Many were cast by foundries like Carron's in Scotland who made all manner of products from fireplaces, stoves, post boxes to cannons. They were fitted with (in comparison to yours) very basic box of wards, with the key directly throwing the bolts and a heavy sprung action to retain them in the thrown and withdrawn position, as opposed to the bolts operating off a proper lever lock like yours.

There's been plenty of discussions on the Carron types on here over the years and there's some good general info on this thread from a while back:
https://www.antique-locks.com/showth...ghlight=Carron

[Gary Stephenson]

some of the others on the display board are cheats, with just spring loaded bolts and no levers or detectors, naughty Chubb engineers.

[Gary Stephenson]

44.5mm tall including strike plate
77.7mm wide total
54.5mm wide lock box
15.3mm deep total, 12.mm deep lock box
approx. 175 grams weight
2mm diameter pin and max 3.5mm approx. outer key diameter.