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Mosler Safe and Lock Co., Hamilton, Ohio, Model 1

The Mosler Safe and Lock company entered the time lock business through its purchase of the Beard & Brothers Co., time lock firm in 1887. The calendar time lock was first envisioned by its inventor Phinneas King, an employee of Mosler, in his original patent in February of 1878, #200,312, and another issued in 1891 upon which this model was based. Mosler Safe and Lock was later folded into Mosler Safe Co. in 1916.

The Mosler Safe Company was a manufacturer of security equipment, most notably safes and bank vaults, beginning in 1874 and ending with its bankruptcy in 2001.

Founded in Cincinnati by Gustave Mosler and Fred Bahmann as the Mosler, Bahmann & Company in 1867. In 1874 after Gustave's death, the Mosler family had a falling out with Mr. Bahmann, leaving Mosler, Bahmann & Company to start the Mosler Safe & Lock Company. Both companies remained in Cincinnati until the 1890s. When Mosler Safe & Lock Co. outgrew its original factory it relocated to Hamilton in 1891, where it remained until its 2001 bankruptcy. Mosler, Bahmann & Company remained in business until around 1898. Its safes and vaults were renowned for their strength and precision manufacture: several Mosler vaults installed in Hiroshima's Mitsui Bank building prior to WWII survived the nuclear attack, and the company subsequently produced doors for missile silos and even the vault formerly used to display and store the United States Constitution and Declaration of Independence. One example, installed at the Atomic Energy Commission's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, weighed approximately 138 tons including the frame. Despite the weight ("the largest and heaviest hinged shielding doors in the world"), each 58-ton blade could be opened and closed manually by one person.

Mosler was controlled by its founding family until 1967, when they sold it to American Standard Companies. American Standard then sold the division to a group of Mosler managers and outside investors in 1986. After 134 years in business, Mosler declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2001, citing continuing debt problems, and ceased operations shortly thereafter. Diebold subsequently announced programs to support former Mosler customers and ended up buying much of the former company in bankruptcy court a few months later.

The Mosler name carries on to this day in Canada as Chubb-Mosler and Taylor Safes Ltd., the outcome of a 1950s merger of Mosler's Canadian operations with those of Chubb Security, followed by the acquisition of Taylor Safes of Canada in the following decade.

 

 

A. Model 1. This lock represents the first type put out by Mosler Safe and Lock in 1887. That same year Mosler had bought out the patent rights to Beard & Brother's time lock design and left it virtually unchanged. It contains two 48 hour E. Howard movements controlled by a central dial. They wholesaled at $78.00 each to Mosler from E. Howard. Yale used a design similar to this where two movements are controlled by one dial. Of the 400 of this first type of time lock made by Mosler only 5 are known. 4 5/8"h x 6"w x 2 5/8"d. Movement #699, case #87. file 105

This company is not to be confused with the Mosler Safe Company which was the result of a series of consolidations of earlier companies including this one, Mosler Bahmann and Banker's Dustproof Time Lock Co. That company emerged in 1917.

The Mosler Safe Company, Hamilton, as seen through the window of a Pullman dining car on the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railway line in 1894.

(1) American Genius Nineteenth Century Bank Locks and Time Locks, David Erroll & John Erroll, pg 260.

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