Beard Brothers, St. Louis, Missouri


Model - Type 2. This rare time lock was part of the first order of
25 movements made by Beard Brothers to the E. Howard Co. of Boston, Mass. in 1878. This
company made a total of 189 time locks until 1886 when the patent rights were sold to
Mosler Safe Co., Hamilton, Ohio. The patent holder, Phinneas King joined the company as
well. This explains the strong similarities of this and Mosler's
first time lock. Later, Yale used a design similar to this where
two movements are controlled by one dial.
In April of 1887 Mosler placed an order of 100 of this model of
time lock from Howard. The first 86 locks had the decorative damascening on the dial
center. The later 14 did not and that design, along with some other minor changes to the
dial, is the one adopted by Mosler in their order.
There are four of this style of lock known to exist. Movement
#123, case #23. file 105