Norman Lock cylinder

[BBE]

Thanks the for patent looks real close except the key isn't double sided.
Lucky you had that magazine article that seems to be the only exact view of this lock to be found. :)

Richard

As happens as often as not, the production model of a lock only implements the overal mechanism features of a particular kind of lock. In the case of the Norman cylinder the overriding feature was the alignment of the ball bearings. It is very likely that making the key with two separate bitted blades that were parallel added a cost factor that the market would not bear. Consequently the key and mechanism to align the ball bearings was changed to produce a better production cost. That change was then documented in the later patent for the overhead door lock. Norman is probably one of the few that ever had one of the cylinders that match the patent drawings.

I have an example of the cylinder shown in the above photo, an example of the overhead door lock and one blank key in my collection. The overehad door lock was actually being produced by the Waterbury Lock and Specialty company just before they decided to close the doors and the key for those locks was brass with a curve to match the cast nickle plated zinc keys used in the cylinder. It's my understanding that Waterbury only made a dozen or so of the overhead door locks before closing their doors. The one I have was used in testing and shows signs of that, but it is still a very rare lock. I will attempt to find it and take a picture in a few weeks.
BBE.