Sargent & Greenleaf, Rochester New York - 2 movements - modified

Model #2. Sargent and Greenleaf invented the first practical time lock and made their own movements. Most other firms, notably Consolidated, Yale, and Diebold used movements from outside suppliers mainly E. Howard & Co. Around 1902 Howard exited the time lock business and Seth Thomas filled much of this. Other makers who arrived later, as Bankers Dustproof and and Mosler Safe Co., then used American Waltham Watch Co. pocket watch movements. Beginning around the 1950's movement production shifted from the United States to Switzerland. Sargent and Greenleaf ceased production of their own movements due to high domestic costs in 1953. This is an example of an expertly modified time lock. It probably was done sometime between 1950's and 1960's. The substituted movements are the standard ones made in Switzerland for the Yale and Towne Co. and were the same as used in theirs and other contemporary locks of the time. According to John Erroll, author of the definitive book on time locks, American Genius Nineteenth Century Bank Locks and Time Locks this was the work of Andy Kotas, Stamford, Connecticut (same city as Yale's headquarters) and a former Yale technician. Retrofitting of time locks occurred when there was a lack of parts or personnel to service older time lock units. Modified time locks were done by a few experts whose work was respected and trusted. After all, if the lock were to fail completely, the door could not be opened. While a regular time lock had redundancies built in from the factory and thus a very low probability of total failure, a modified lock with altered parts common to all the movements like snubber bar drop lever or bolt could, if made poorly, cause a total failure. In the entire history of the use of factory installed time locks with redundant movements, when the lock was properly used and serviced and in the absence of tampering or efforts at forced entry to the safe, there has never been a total failure of a time lock resulting in the door being unable to be opened. file 2

Most time lock modifications were performed on S&G locks since this company made their own uniquely configured movements. Early locks that used less commonly available movements, particularly those before the introduction of S&G's modular style movement lines after 1890 were candidates. Even so, modified locks are quite rare. It was an expensive procedure done from absolute necessity, and the risk of a catastrophic failure, while remote if done properly, was still a deterrent to the conservative banking community.

Other modified time locks.