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Hollar Lock Inspection and Guarantee Company, Philadelphia, PA, Model 2
Front elevation.
The upper case contains the rewinding mechanism motor that connects via a bevel wheel though was appears as the third movement. That movement has no serial number and is a dummy movement to match the other three. The bevel is attached to a shaft behind the movement front plate with a set of reduction gearing that will rewind the movement adjacent to the right through the rear of the time lock movement mounting plate.
This photo shows the time lock is in the "as found" condition see restoration page for complete renovation.
Rear elevation. The coil set is a solenoid that actuates the connection to the motor in the upper case. Notice the wear on the front of the coils. This is because they were never properly recessed into the time lock case and rubbed on the surface of the vault door to which the time lock was mounted. Had these ever been energized they would have immediately caused a short circuit, never allowing the motor to perform its emergency rewinding function. The fact that there are no burn markings indicates that this option was never called upon after the coils began to wear. As is, the wear is on the surface and does not extend between the coils so they still function.
A rear elevation of the time lock before restoration. Notice the rust line where the lock sat in water. Also note what appears to be dangerously damaged wiring. The beige colored material was what is now a brittle outer protective tubing that protected the thin cloth-covered wires. The electrical connections are still intact and since the system runs on low voltage, I decided to keep it as it is an important historical part of the lock.
This video demonstrates the Hollar Model 2 introduced in 1896. This time lock used a motor to allow the user to rewind one of the three time locks indefinitely to keep the vault closed after the maximum 72 hours denoted on the timer movement dials. This was thought to be useful in the event of civil disturbance or possible invasion. It was an improvement from their Model 1 that used a massive spring to rewind the timer giving the operator only a few times to rewind the time lock without having to open the vault door to rewind the spring. One of the issues with this type of design is that under the emergency of the rewinding period, only one movement would be used to keep the time lock on guard - a fundamental violation of having redundancy in the timer movements to prevent a lockout. There were features in this design to remediate this problem and are described at the end of this video as well as the web page.
Hollar Model 2 time lock electrical and
mechanical schematic explanation. Figure 1 is the control
panel to initiate the electrical rewinding sequence. Figure 2 shows the
electrical systems and Figure 3 the mechanical winding and override systems,
both as seen from the rear of the time lock. Sequence of events: 1. In Fig. 1, Switch A
is actuated to ON position. This allows voltage from DC supply to be
connected to the control panel. 2, Operator pushes
Switch B and holds for three seconds. Indicator light, L illuminates. 3. At this point coil,
c is energized and the toggle bar, tb is pivoted through magnetic attraction
to the coil, c; tb when actuated by c engages clutch, cl within the first
movement, m1 to engage the rear five lobed cam, cm2 (rear view) with the
motor, M. Prior to this point the clutch, cl, is disengaged allowing for the
movement, m1, to be wound manually. Otherwise if the clutch were engaged,
the operator would not be able to manually wind m1 during normal operation
of the time lock mechanism. 4. At the same time the
coil is energized, toggle bar, tb also removes detent, d, from the disabler
bar, db which is then moved via a spring to the right, Bias. The cam
follower, cf is now moved leftward through pivots p1 and p2 to ride upon the
surface of the five lobed cam, cm2 mounted to movement, m1. 5. At the moment Switch
B is activated, motor M is energized and is connected through a series of
gear wheels to the five lobed cam, ca2 and begins to rotate
counterclockwise, r1. 6. As the cam follower,
cf rides upon the cam incline, the disabler bar, db is moved leftward via
pivots p1, p2 and actuator, e is brought into contact with limit switch, ls,
closing the switch. This allows the circuit to continue to energize coil c,
motor M and the indicator light, L to continue running even after the
operator stops pushing switch B until the cam follower, cf falls off the cam
lobe edge which at that time detent, e moves rightward, the limit switch, ls
opens, the motor and coil are de-energized. At this point the disabler bar,
db is fully moved rightward and movements m2 and m3 are disabled. This makes each cycle
of the motor uniform in time, and one could substitute the indicator light
for a dial that would then tell the operator how many cycles have been
entered. Knowing how many hours are added to the timer movement, m1 for each
cycle tells the operator how many hours the time lock will be delayed in
addition to that which was originally dialed in before activation of the
electrical rewind system. In this case about is 2.5 hours/cycle. It is
likely that this type of dial indicator was what was originally provided
with the time lock at the time of its installation. One full rotation of the
cam, ca2 results in five cycles amounting to about 12 to 12.5 hours about
one half day delay. 7. After the electrical
rewind of movement, m1 is finished, m1 begins to run on its own and ca2,
begins to rotate clockwise, r2. The cam is three dimensional. A side view of
the cam, ca1 shows each lobe of the cam is tapered. So when the cam reverses
its rotation from anticlockwise to clockwise, the cam follower, cf will not
get blocked and damaged by running into the drop off of the cam lobe.
Instead it is pushed, via the taper onto a smooth track, t that runs
alongside the lobes and is at the same minimum height as seen at the
beginning of each lobe. As long as movement, m1 is running, the cam
follower, cf will stay on this track, t, the disabler bar, db will remain at
its full bias to the right and movements m2, and m3 will remain disabled. It
is important to note that the cam follower, cf is mounted to a stiff trip of
spring steel that biases it toward the front of the lock (away from the
viewer), so when the electrical cycle begins and the cam, ca2 reverses
rotation to anticlockwise, the cam follower, cf will move off the circular
track, t and remount the next available cam lobe at the point its surface
meets the surface of the track, t to begin the next rewinding cycle. 8. When the operator
wants to return the time lock to normal manual mechanical operation, a set
button, Set, is located on the side of the case, runs through the case and
will push the disabler bar db leftward until detent, d locks and defeats the
disabler bar, db from interfering with movements, m2 and m3 permanently, or
until coil, c is energized.
This patent was issued on the same day as that which describes the Model 1, patent number 540,020 is only one number after that patent, 540,521. Both were invented simultaneously. So my designation of this being Model 2 vs. what is designated as Model 1 is arbitrary. Hollar Model 2, c. 1896. This small company used the earliest 'M' sized movements supplied by Seth Thomas about the time E. Howard exited the time lock business in 1902. Those movement's serial numbers began at 500. The company's unique design incorporated an electrical device. In this model a motor located in the separate smaller case on top of the time lock and a set of coils located in a recess in the rear of the time lock that could, in case of an emergency, allow one of the three time locks to be rewound without having to open the vault door. The other two are disabled at the same time to prevent those from taking the time lock off guard on their own. This could be useful in the case of a civil catastrophe such as riot or fire, an occurrence that Bankers of the 1890's would have been aware of, having seen recent unrest from such issues as race and labor organization as well as earlier concerns such as the Civil War draft. The Model 2 can keep rewinding the time lock movement over and over because of its use of the motor. This contrasts with the method used in the Model 1 where a large spring is electrically released and is only able to rewind theone time lock movement a few times; there is no provision to rewind the spring. It must be wound up manually from the front of the lock obviously with the vault open. Given the greater flexibility of the rewinding function used in the Model 2, it seems surprising that the Model 1 was ever produced. Perhaps it was a bit less expensive, or maybe some vault door bolt works would not allow the extra space needed for the upper case containing the motor. Of course having one timer to control the lock is not recommended as if it fails there is a lockout. However, as explained above, there is a way to release the other two timers and so either of those will run down and put the lock off guard. The same can be done in the Model 1, but with a different procedure. The Model 3 gets around this problem by having an electric motor rewind all the time lock movements at once and that model has all four timers in place so the advantages of redundancy is preserved. Apparently this emergency rewinding function was not a feature that the market felt justified the extra cost. Less than 100 Hollar locks were made in three design formats of which only two of each format are known to survive. Given the many similarities in the case design and the fact that Hollar's movements were interchangeable with Yale's, and indeed the Model 1 and Model 2 examples shown on this site were equipped with Yale insignia movements, and used Yale's Model Quad N case design, the locks were certainly supplied by Yale. There is an example of a M-movement made for Hollar that has a Hollar designation on the dial. Just as Hollar designed, but did not fabricate safes and vaults, it appears that this too was the case with its time lock. Later Yale would help out another new entrant into the time lock market, Mosler Safe Co. in 1916. Holler's time locks operated Yale's Model 1 bolt motor, their largest and most powerful. Upper and lower cases #79, movements #771, #772, #784 (#784 has a dial marked 915-M) with no serial number on the third dummy movement. Time lock with second case, 9.5"w x 8.5"h x 4"d. file 361
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Above are photos of a vault door built by the Hall Safe Co. with the Hollar Model
2 configuration.
But at some point in time all of the original 72 hour movements were
replaced with longer 120 hour duration movements. The third dummy movement of the time lock
which had the reduction gearing was replaced
with a normal M-sized movement and the winding mechanism disconnected
(smaller case mounted above the time lock). These photos show a round door style that was
designed by Hollar but built by the Hall Safe and Lock Company. The close up
in the third photo details the separate electric controller on top of the four
movement Quad N style case. This unit contained the motor that did the remote winding of the
original Hollar time lock and has since been stripped of the components
within this case leaving only the name plate.
A close look at the snubber bar in the third photo shows that it may only
have the original three studs that were each pushed by the dial pins of the three time lock
movements as they wind down to zero (the fourth movement was the dummy that
had the reduction gearing). There is no stud where the third movement is
installed just as there was none originally since that area was not occupied
by a time lock movement. There is also a small button that protrudes
from the left side of the case in the same area as the example shown proving
that the case is an original Hollar. Unless a new stud was invisibly
attached for the third movement it is merely there to make
the lock look complete. This is the same reason why the now unused winding
mechanism case is still present with the front name plaque carefully retained,
furthermore the the smaller case on top, if removed reveals a large
rectangular cutout from the top of the lower timelock case - an unacceptable
result. Missing pieces on a vault door would not instill
confidence if it could be seen by the customer! The lock now operates like a
Yale Quad N. But in other circumstances the owner did not care, see below.
Most complex or otherwise esoteric time locks like the Hollar, Holms, and
Hall/Consolidated have either been modified or replaced as time went
on and their reliability or serviceability became problematic. In the case
of Hollar it was especially easy to convert the lock to a Yale Quad N (but
with three movements) by disconnecting the winding mechanism, or even just
disconnecting the electrical supply. One could replace the third winding mechanism with a regular third movement and the Hollar snubber bar with the Yale counterpart
making it a regular Yale Quad N, so few unaltered examples of
the Hollar survive. The few that do are no longer called upon to operate.
This is the case with any pre-Great depression unaltered time lock mounted
to a safe that is still in commercial use. The movements are no longer
serviceable to the degree that they can ensure their absolute reliability.
The Hollar time lock uses a
Yale automatic bolt motor. What's interesting is the fact that Hollar makes
sure by prominent signage that they are the designers of this
vault. Hollar like Yale was involved in safe and vault design but did not
actually fabricate them. Hall, Diebold and Mosler are examples of time lock
makers who were not only designers but also builders of safes and
vaults.
This photo shows an especially sad example of an older, quite rare time lock
(Hollar Model 2) altered to continue serving its function
¹. This photo is
from a PNC Bank branch closed in 2021 in Media, PA., the original Bank name
in unknown. Here the entire rewinding mechanism was stripped out of the
smaller upper case. All three of the original c. 1900 Hollar-designed Yale
M-sized movements and the time lock altered to accept smaller, modern
Swiss-made L-sized movements, with only the empty and stripped out third
dummy movement as testament to what was originally a Hollar time lock. Another
interesting thing to note here is that the smaller and less powerful L-sized
modern Swiss-made movements were substituted for the larger M-sized
movements. This confirms what this author has asserted before that the size
and power of the larger movements were a mere marketing effort since smaller
time lock movements as well as those with less than four movements, and thus
smaller time locks on a more massive door would not look 'the part'. Of
course a larger time lock commands a greater price! The example on the large
round door fits this narrative, but this example on the Damen door looks way
oversized, the upper case barely fits between the gear bolts. Clearly the
original owner wanted the option to keep the door closed past the maximum
duration of the timers.
In any other field of horology such alterations would elicit scorn and
ridicule. But one must remember that in the case of a time lock that must
still function reliably to ensure there is never a lockout due to its
failure, such alterations are inevitable. Parts must be substituted to
ensure current reliability and reasonable servicing. The last Hollar
movement made was around 1902 so it would be negligent to entrust a vault
door's security to a time lock movement over 220 years old.
A similar argument is often made for tower clocks that can be hundreds of
years old. What alterations such as automatic winding are permissible? A
great controversy was recently involved with the historic clock in St.
Mark's Square in Venice (which this author was a part of). But in the case
of an antique tower clock, the weight of opinion falls squarely on the side
of not altering anything unless absolutely necessary, and if there must be
as with auto-winding, this must be reversible and not involve any permanent
violation of the original movement. But a tower clock, should it fail,
merely shows an inaccurate time, not so with a time lock! So allowances must
and are made. This fact makes obtaining a rare or an unusual time lock in
original condition a special event.
In these two photos we see the Hollar advertisement, but as with all other
safes equipped with a Holler time lock the lock was made with the
cooperation of the Yale and Towne Manufacturing Co., and the vault was made
by another company, in this case the Damon Safe and Iron Works Co. Boston
MA. The Hollar company were only designers of safe, vault and time lock
technologies.
1. Photo curtsey of Michael Schiavone, Aspire Safe and Lock 
