Hall's Safe & Lock Co, Cincinnati, Ohio - 2 mvt

                                                         A

                   B

A. Two movement by this company that was the predecessor of the Consolidated Time Lock Company c.1877. Time locks made under the Hall name are rare as this company was only in business a few years before being merged into the Consolidated Time Lock Co. in January of 1880 to insulate his successful safe and lock business from his risky and untested time lock business.(1) Actually, only the name changed as the time locks themselves were nearly identical. Compare to the same style lock under the Consolidated name. Only the type of window showing the movement's escapement changed to the smaller round openings to increase strength against explosion. This example also has a rare example of the escapement components being silver plated ver. the normal brass as well as square cross-hatch damascene work. 5"w x 3"h x 2.75"d. Case #73,  movement #1105. file 72

B. A very early Hall two movement time lock case, perhaps the original demonstration or prototype case and possibly unique. The very earliest example of the Hall company's production time lock is featured in John Erroll's book.(2) That example has a movement numbered 1001 and was housed in a case that featured a front door with scalloped corners as well as the early top rectangular glass aperture. It is not known if the scalloped front door was used in any of the production runs and the top rectangular glass was replaced with a dual porthole design shortly afterwards. However there are no known examples of the round apertures being placed on the sides of the case. These round bezels are also completely different from those that were used later to replace the top rectangular window in all of their later time locks, photos four and five. This case as well as that in 'A', above was also machined to a much thinner gage than later locks, probably those later locks to resist explosion attacks. Note also the very nice nickel finish. Hall and to a great extent their later locks manufactured under the Consolidated name suffered from degradation of the silver colored finish. It appears that their earlier locks had a better plating technique that their later locks lacked. The movement inside this case is a much later replacement and is otherwise unremarkable. Case #11, later movement #6427. file 159

(1) American Genius Nineteenth Century Bank Locks and Time Locks, David Erroll & John Erroll, pg 168.