Two movement prototype

There are two known examples of this lock. One in the Mossman Collection at the General Mechanics and Tradesmen Society Museum, New York City and this one. The Mossman example is illustrated in John Erroll's book American Genius on pages 256 and 257.

The case is almost certain to have been made by the Hall/Consolidated Company. The case has the identical type of counter-sunk pin-hinged door, nickel plating and hook-shaped dogging devise designed to lock onto the fence of a Hall combination lock, or an automatic as seen on their line of time locks. Hall/Consolidated also acted as a source for the Chicago Safe & Lock Company's first introduction of time lock, their Gem model. There, the case design is a direct copy of the early Hall dual movement cases but larger overall. In the Chicago instance, the movements were also made to the same design as used by Hall and were produced by E. Howard. The movements illustrated here are made by the Waterbury Clock Co. This leads one to think that the lock may have been made as a prototype with the inventor's having the case made by an established firm for the case and other ancillary components.

Another example of this inter-company cooperation in producing a prototype and patent models is a time lock made by Overmyer & Huston. There are two prototype locks known to have been made by these inventors. Their Model 1 which I believe was only produced as a patent model and their Model 2 which is displayed in the Mossman Collection in New York City. The Model 1 may have has some connection with Hall, but the Model 2 case is another example of Hall's case design with the timelock components to the inventor's design being installed.

The movement is marked as being made by the Waterbury Clock Co., Waterbury Connecticut. 

The front decorative plate is removed revealing the twin movements. They are independent of each other, however they are both mounted to the back plate and the front plate secures the front of the spring barrel arbor. Since the movements are mirrored, they must have been specially made for this lock, if they were simply "off the shelf" they would not be so.

The movements are quite simple and of a lower quality. There are no escapement pallet or escape wheel pivot jewels. The only jewels are located only on the upper and lower pivot holes for the balance wheels. Those balances are solid brass rims; providing no temperature compensation as would be seen in most time lock movements. The lack of these features violate the rule where reliability is an all important priority.

Removing the movement from the case is tricky as the springs are not enclosed by a spring barrel and push fairly hard against the case sides. One can see the witness marks of scratches on the inner vertical case walls of prior removal and insertions. Another indication of this being a prototype.

Front decorative plate is removed revealing simple stamped dial wheels. If one looks closely, the number are hand stamped with dies that were numerated 0 through 9.

An examination of of the lock shows a close similarity to the type of case made by the Hall/Consolidated company. Also the dogging device is the same style as this company. This author believes that the this lock was made or at least assisted by the the Hall/Consolidated company using their case and bolt feature with the remaining components to the inventor's design. 

The pivoted locking lever is loosely similar to Diebold's, on their three movement TISCO lock, but this is purely speculative.

In American Genius, by John and David Erroll the Mossman example below is illustrated with the following text:

The time lock shown here is listed in Lure of the Lock (a book published in connection with the Mossman Collection), with the following description:

There is no clue to the manufacturer of this lock, which was donated by the Mosler Safe Co., Hamilton Ohio. There are two forty-six hour movements. 6 1/2 x 2 1/2 x 2 inches. Middle shelf. See last photo below.

Little has come to light about this time lock specifically in the intervening eight-eight years, but it shares some interesting features with other time locks that hints at its source.

The time lock does not carry an attribution and is not a known production design, but during the 1890's the Diebold Company began manufacturing for use in its Tisco line of of safes and the Tisco-specific time locks were about the same size and shape as this one. Moreover, the  Tisco-specific time locks featured a lever on the case bottom that could hold the release hook open, allowing the safe to be closed with the combination lock only during business hours. The same lever is visible here, to the left of the release hook. This time lock also has the same art nouveau acid etching used by Diebold on its early time lock designs.

The other example from the Mossman Collection in Mew York City. Their description is as follows: "There is no clue as to the manufacturer of this lock, which was donated by the Mosler Safe Co., Hamilton, Ohio. There are two forty-six hour movements. 6 1/2 x 2 1/4 x 2 inches. Middle shelf." 

(1) American Genius Nineteenth Century Bank Locks and Time Locks, David & John Erroll, pp. 256-257