Oh I am Sooo going to get my Digital camera working… Downtown we have an Old Victor bank vault in Mint condition, in fact there are service slips glued in the door frame when techncians would come and run preventative maintenance, they date back from the 20’s. It is the fancy ship door exterior gear set up. Is no longer in use (combintation and such) but is a pretty piece of craftsmanship. Unlike the 1930 Yale Vault door we have in the downtown Federal building… it is as plain Jane as it gets, although it does still have the original lock and change key. Palikia any chance of pictures?
It occurred to me after reading the OP again that the safe door appears to be open, since he said they can’t shut the door. If that’s the case, he should be able to take the back off the lock, defeat any protective mechanism that prevents the dial from turning with the back off, dial the combo and see if the gates all line up with the fence. If not, then they have the wrong combination and it would be a simple task to find out the correct one.
They sure used to be. 99% of the safes in the Department of State were Moslers; the rest were old Diebolds that were nearly impossible to drill open. S&G had the monopoly on combo safe locks.
I was kinda lucky learning the trade in Philadelphia, with many very old vaults fitted with pressure doors, and emergency pressure back doors. The main office of PSFS at 1234 Market Street was a ‘must visit’ for engineering students, as they had a round pressure door on the cash vault, located on the building mezzanine level-quite an accomplishment of that era.
Mosler did have a number of high-profile contracts, including a substantial number of DoD contracts, financial institutions and a number of well-known retail chains.
Mosler did not go out of business due to a lack of customers.
I have heard rumor that Mosler’s failure stemmed from substantial mismanagement at top levels.
I am not in a position to know the truth, but my suspicion is that more conservative hands at the helm would have managed to avoid this failure.
[slight hijack]
My nickel’s worth of wisdom is that several factors contributed to the death of Mosler, and Inter Innovation LeFebure.
One was the changes in regulations regarding interstate banking. Merger-mania was present in the late 1980’s through early 90’s, and at least in the Philly market, there was a glut of used equipment, so sales took a nosedive.
Mosler had no ATM. We had one, but it wasn’t that successful. Diebold had the vision to realize the future market of ATMs and had a good, solid machine, and continued to introduce new improvements.
Mosler had really dismal motor bank equipment. Our Tel-Air line was solid, although we did introduce some dogs. VATs, by Diebold, were a quality product. EF Bavis came along with their Autoveyor, and there were some other folks chipping away at market share, too.
Mosler had some pioneering products in the alarm area back in the day, but over time, the folks who specialized in alarm and access control, such as Radionics, Napco, and Ademco, to name a few, simply produced better goods, at a lower price than either Mosler or IIL could produce in house. Read-built overseas.
What Mosler did have was top shelf security products, built by craftsmen, but the market which was willing to pay for them was shrinking. Their single-nose key-changeable safe deposit lock was a mechanical thing of beauty, but was an expensive item to build. The lovely old pressure doors with gleaming brass, copper, and polished steel behind bevel-edged glass were being replaced by cheaper materials with greater manufacturing tolerances. We had a better modular vault, but eventually, there was too little pie to feed three large, hungry companies.
I can’t speak directly from inside Mosler, but Inter Innovation LeFebure was plagued by what we’d describe as “tripping over twenties to pick up a nickel”.
Product was rushed to the field without adequate testing and debug, so much warranty time was burned, and sales held too much sway over service/installation billing procedures. My P&L was a constant battle with sales who were reluctant to bill customers for charges incurred, in fear of losing an upcoming contract.
In one argument with the sales manager, I told him that he’s expecting me to row, and bail, while he’s drilling holes in the effing boat.
From the folks I knew at Mosler, they indicated similar bad management decisions.
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