Chubb Serial Number Dates

[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basic box of wards, with the key directly throwing the bolts and a heavy sprung action to retain them in the thrown and withdrawn position, as opposed to the bolts operating off a proper lever lock like yours.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

[Pierre Van Nechel]

Thanks Huw

[KitBear]

Quite an unusual piece really since most of the New Patent Safe locks were double gated to allow the Detector to be reset should it become tripped.

It is an early one, it doesn't have a split plate to stop a "Jack-in-the-Box" attack as found on locks from around 1838, I would agree with Brian on the date being between 1835 to 1836, the latter being most likely as Brian stated.

Can you post a few more pics focusing on the Detector, it looks like the Detector hook has broken off. It might just be the picture though.

[Daniel John]

Hi all,

I have a number of antique Chubb locks for which i would like history information, from the Chubb Company lock registers. Several of the locks have very early numbers. There are a number of lcoks, so i will list them in groups, in several posts. Thank you for your help with this.

[Daniel John]

And here are rim locks for which I'd like register information. The 6" brass cased lock came from York, the 6" steel cased lock from the South of England, and the 8" steel cased lock from Australia. The latter is new old stock, never having been used.