Ultimate & One-off Freestanding Safes

[Huw Eastwood]

For insurances E10 is now equivalent to EN1143 grade VI.

Interesting this if insurance companies actually followed this thinking.
This thread got me drawn into the whole RAL v EN hornets nest and it seems these comparison equivalents are a common misconception.

From what I've understood the RAL D tests through to E10 were very different to the EN's grades upto VI, they involved different tooling, and perhaps most crucial of all focused on different target aspects of the safes.
RAL's testing focused more on the body aimed at creating a hand sized hole to remove contents, whereas EN's also put importance to attack on the door.

[safeman]

[QUOTE=Huw Eastwood;30781]Interesting this if insurance companies actually followed this thinking.
This thread got me drawn into the whole RAL v EN hornets nest and it seems these comparison equivalents are a common misconception.


Huw, I must be more out of date than I thought as although the term RAL sounds familiar I cannot place it anywhere in the European Testing system.

[Huw Eastwood]

Huw, I must be more out of date than I thought as although the term RAL sounds familiar I cannot place it anywhere in the European Testing system.

Safeman, I have to confess I didn't question any references to RAL as I'd assumed it was the RAL Institute, which I'd always regarded as Germany's sort of equivalent to all the others like Japan's JIS, Sweden's SIS, America's UL etc.
You still see it a lot with paints with RAL codes,, although I don't know what RAL safe testing was known as back then in the early 80's as relevant to the safes discussed here.

[Cepasaccus]

Interesting this if insurance companies actually followed this thinking.
This thread got me drawn into the whole RAL v EN hornets nest and it seems these comparison equivalents are a common misconception.

From what I've understood the RAL D tests through to E10 were very different to the EN's grades upto VI, they involved different tooling, and perhaps most crucial of all focused on different target aspects of the safes.
RAL's testing focused more on the body aimed at creating a hand sized hole to remove contents, whereas EN's also put importance to attack on the door.

Comparing safe standards is very difficult. What I know (or believe to know) about German safe standard history is:

I believe the first safe security standard comes from around the 1920s where safes were approved for national banks by the post (Reichspost = RP, in case you see it on locks). It seems the aim was for unpickable locks and basically unpenetratable safes. That is the time when Kromer improved their business very much. The "unpickable" was even in the 50s the aim for the locks. As the high end Protector was then picked in a demonstration in three hours by a guy who has specialized on this lock type and trained many years - and they improved the design just because of this event.

After the war the post was renamed to Bundespost (BP) and I think from around the 1960s there was the Posttechnisches Zentralamt (PTZ, post technical central bureau) with the standards 7201, I think. The security levels were called Sicherheitsgrad (security grade) and ranged from I to IV. Grade III required a 4-wheel combination lock and a high end Protector with a key hole filling piece(?). Grade IV required the same locks and had a Lafette. There was an "a" variant which had aluminum/corundum filling in the walls. This standard specified only the construction. The standard for the current government security containers is still based on the PTZ standards. The government ratings are SG I VS and SG II VS (Verschlusssache = classified material) which are the basic grades plus some additional requirements, e.g. an opening counter.

After this came RAL (founded in 1925 as "Reichausschuss fuer Lieferbedingungen" = imperial committee for delivery conditions) with their RAL-RG 62x standards suite, which was partly construction and partly security testing. From there comes the C1 (+F for fire safe), C2, D1, D2, E1, and vault ratings. C1/C2 was with single lock, the higher classes with key and combination lock. A later version of this standard introduced the D10/D20/E10 ratings. There were also A and B safes, but I don't know if they were from the beginning according to a construction-only VDMA standard (Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau = Mechanical Engineering Industry Association). This VDMA 24992 is referenced even now even so it is not valid anymore since 2003.

After this came the European norm EN-1143. I believe this is based on a test-only standard created by the German VdS (formerly known as Verband der Schadensversicherer = Association of the damage insurers, but now it is just VdS without any meaning). The purpose of this standard is IMHO just for insurances. There are tables which map pessimistically the old safe standard (at least the RAL-RG) for insurances. Price reductions and rivaling test labs created lower non-uniform security. Because the standard is very complex is is really unusable for every else than insurances. The old A and B grades live on in the S1/S2 rating of EN 14450 which is now also a test standard.

Comparing safe standards is really difficult. A PTZ safe is construction only and can't be compared to a UL safe which is mostly tested. Comparing an EN1143 grade safe with a UL safe (both testing) is really difficult. Even when just planning an attack on paper there are differences of three EN grades for one UL rating possible just depending on the tools used. Additionally there are the variations due to the different test labs.

Of all the German safe standards I do know nobody who has anything before EN and I don't know where to get them. So comparing is of the old stuff is really impossible for me.

[Cepasaccus]

The RAL-RG standards were tested by Forschungs- und Prüfgemeinschaft für Geldschränke und Tresoranlagen e.V. (FuP = research and testing community for safes and vaults). AFAIK is the ECB-S the successor to FuP.

[Cepasaccus]

And btw. each country has its own style of insurance system, so what I wrote/write is only valid for Germany. The equivalence of safe grades is not mandatory. So each insurer may decide on his own how to handle old safes and even new ones. Insurers may say that they do not know the PTZ graded safes and offer only very basic insurances like for a S1 or S2 safe ("looks sturdy and has an inner and outer sheet") even so a SG IIIa is much more secure. And some insurers do not accept any EN1143 grades safe, but demand VdS graded safes.