I am relisting this piece of lock history and letting you make offers on it this time. I was quite surprised that none of you Yale, Prison, or Patent Model collectors jumped on it, but these are interesting times in the collecting World. I have seen patent models of historical significance sell for many many 1000's of dollars. It is listed a little higher Buy-It-Now but offers are all considered. If you want it.. don't be afraid to make an offer. Please note: The silver looking edges where it is flush with case are bare metal. The base appears much lighter in photos than it actually is.
This is the actual patent model for the Prison Lock Patent Number 200,156 Patented on February 12, 1878 by Henry R. Towne & Thomas F. Keating of Stamford, Connecticut, Assignors To The Yale Lock Manufacturing Company of the same place. This model is missing the tag, but the tag lace is still on the top, and up until a few weeks ago it still had the two small brass grommet halves on the lace that are probably in the bottom of a box. Every single aspect of this piece matches identically to the drawings in the patent papers. This lock has the spring loaded button that holds the bolt back once opened and releases the bolt once door is locked. It also only has two levers like the drawing. The frame that the lock is mounted in has dowels representing cell bars. The long one on the right fits into the groove on the lock itself making it more secure. Once this bar is removed and the brass button top is unscrewed the mechanism can be removed from the door. The frame also has a hole for the spring loaded pin on the bottom showing that it could be used for any door swing and the button would operate on the bottom as well as the top. The large bolt which is 2-1/2" high and 7/8" thick has nicely chambered edges and ornamental machining on body. This model also fits into the Patent Model size restrictions of 12" X 12" X 12". It measures 12" across base and 12" high and the base is 6-1/2" wide. The lock body and frame itself measures 7-3/8" wide X 6-1/8" high X 2-1/2" thick not counting the bolt which sticks out 1-5/8" from lock body. The entire piece weighs nearly 14 lbs. This lock mechanism took what is referred to as a Spike Key and this one has a very long nose protruding 5/8" from the lock body.
I have owned and seen many patent models over the years and many were mishandled and lost their tags, but this is the type of material that held them on run through a tag with a double sided grommet. This model was missing the base when I acquired it also, but the side pieces both had tenon tongues on the bottom with glue residue on them indication it had a base at one time. The base is not shown in patent images because it was irrelevant to the patent itself. As the piece is quite top heavy a base was necessary and I had one professionally made by a Museum Quality Restoration Specialist. There is also no key shown in photos because the mechanism is easily manipulated by hand and again that did not pertain the the patent. I have owned early Yale Spike keys in the past, but of course when your looking for a double side early Spike there are none to be found, but one would look nice with the piece for display and key operation.
The beautiful thing about this model is the superb high quality of manufacturing in the piece. That also makes perfect sense as Henry Towne the Co-Founder of Yale Lock Manufacturing Company with Linus Yale Jr. in 1868 had access to some of the best quality machine tools by 1877 when the patent was applied for. Linus Yale Jr. died in 1868, but as you can see if you look up the Patent text the company was still called the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company and had not yet been changed to Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company. Many of you Collectors know me (Lane Clark) and I have been involved with lock world for a long time. I have never seen one of these Prison Locks from Yale that had the pin in it like the drawings and this model have, but I that does not mean they aren't out there. In all the research I have done over the last several months I have never seen one either. The basic lever mechanism that was refined and simplified many times over a long period of time was used on countless cells around this Country.
This is a historically significant patent model as patent models go. Not only is it a model of a product that was actually produced, it was also a highly successful product from one of the greatest lock companies in history. This will be extremely well packed and I would suggest insuring it also, but that is the buyers choice. Below is some information about Linus Yale & Henry Towne attained from Wikipedia. I could not find any information about Thomas Keating other than some of his inventions.
Linus Yale Jr. (April 4, 1821 – December 25, 1868) was an American mechanical engineer, manufacturer, and co-founder of the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company. He is best known for his inventions of locks, especially the cylinder lock. His basic lock design is still widely distributed today, and constitute a majority of personal locks and safes. Linus Yale Jr. was born in Salisbury, New York. Yale’s father, Linus Yale Sr. opened a lock shop in the 1840s in Newport, New York, specializing in bank locks. Linus Yale’s family are of Welsh descent, and his ancestors were of the same family as Elihu Yale, the benefactor to and namesake of the well known Yale University. Yale’s father, Linus Yale Sr., was a successful inventor who owned a Lock Shop in the village of Newport, New York, and specialized in expensive, handmade bank locks and mechanical engineering, and who held eight patents for locks and another half dozen for threshing machines, sawmill head blocks, and millstone dressers. After some regular education Yale soon joined his father in his business and introduced some revolutionary locks that utilized permutations and cylinders. In 1858, Yale’s father died, and Linus Yale Jr. became more involved with his father’s lock company. Yale opened his own shop about 1860 in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, specializing in bank locks. He later founded a company with Henry Robinson Towne in the South End section of Stamford, Connecticut, called the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company. Throughout his career in lock manufacturing, Yale acquired numerous patents for his inventions and received widespread acclaim from clients regarding his products. On a business trip to New York City in 1868, the same year that the Yale Manufacturing Company was founded, Yale died suddenly of a heart attack while negotiating to have his locks installed in a skyscraper. By that time, his locks were already selling profusely, and under Towne’s management Yale Locks became the premier manufacturer of locks in the United States. Yale’s Locks still play a major part in today’s security systems. In his later years, Yale perfected the mechanism known as the "clock lock" and invented the double lock, which placed two locks within one case to be operated by the same or different combinations. His improvements in locks and boxes for the post-offices are of recognized utility and worldwide adoption. The commonly used combination locks omnipresent today also owe their dues to Linus Yale Jr. In 2006 Yale was induced into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Henry
Robinson Towne (August 24, 1844 in Philadelphia – October 15, 1924) was an
American mechanical engineer and businessman, known as early systematizer of
management. Iography. Towne
was born in Philadelphia in 1844 to John Henry and Maria (Tevis) T. Towne.[3]
He attended the University of Pennsylvania from 1861 to 1862, where he was a
member of St. Anthony Hall,[4] but did not complete a degree. The university
later awarded him an honorary master's degree. Following his year of college,
Towne found work as a draftsman at the Port Richmond Iron Works, which was
owned by I. P. Morris, Towne & Co..[3] In 1863, Towne was put in charge of
repair work for the union gunboat Massachusetts. During 1864-1866, Towne was
placed in charge of erecting engines in monitors for the United States Navy.
After the war, Towne went to Paris and studied physics at the Sorbonne. When he
returned, he found employment with the firm of William Sellers & Co., in
Philadelphia. n the
summer of 1868, Henry R. Towne was introduced to Linus Yale, Jr. by a mutual
friend.[3] Towne was, by this time, looking for a new business opportunity and
had become impressed about the possibilities of Yale's new "cylinder"
lock. In October 1868, the two men formed the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company,
to be located in Stamford, Connecticut.[3] Towne provided new capital and
management of the firm, and Yale the invention.[6] Yale died later in 1868, and
Towne reorganized the company as Yale & Towne Manufacturing Co. Towne stepped
down as chairman in 1915. Within this time-frame he developed the Towne-Halsey
plan. According to F.W. Taylor and mentioned in his book Scientific Management
"it consists in recording the quickest time in which a job has been done,
and fixing this as a standard. If the workman succeeds in doing the job in a
shorter time, he is still paid his same wages per hour for the time he works on
the job, and in addition is given a premium for having worked faster,
consisting of from one-quarter to one-half the difference between the wages
earned and the wages originally paid when the job was done in standard time
owne was one of the first
engineers to see management as a new social role for engineers and that the
development of management techniques was important for the development of the
engineering profession. He laid out his ideas about the management role for the
engineer in his "The Engineer as Economist." He was elected President
of the ASME in 1888, and his presidential address continued to address how to
improve shop and worker efficiency (see "Gain-Sharing"). Towne and
Link-Belt president James Mapes Dodge were responsible for maneuvering
Frederick Winslow Taylor to the Presidency of the ASME in 1906 (Noble, ABD,
269-270). Henry R. Towne died on October 15, 1924.[8] His wife Cora E. White,
whom he had married in 1868, died in 1917. In his will, Towne bequeathed over
two million dollars to the establishment of the Museums of the Peaceful Arts in
Manhattan
I will do my best to work with out of Country buyers and will not list any more knives with the "Global Shipping" option. If you can't bid because I accidentally didn't uncheck the "Global Shipping", please let me and Ebay know. US Postal rates increased a lot this year. If you have good feedback, or have done business with me in the past I will consider less expensive shipping options, but please keep in mind I have to protect myself on the more expensive items. As always shipping will be combined on multiple purchases.
Thanks for looking, and GOOD LUCK!............
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