Safe Serial Number Lookup: What Your Number Can (and Can’t) Tell You, Maker by Maker

Type an old safe’s serial number into a search box and, for most makers, nothing comes back. For a few, the records do survive: Mosler printed its own year list, and Chubb’s registers can date a lock to the month. Here’s which is which, maker by maker.

Safe serial number lookup at a glance

Most people searching for a serial number lookup are hoping for a website that turns a number into a year. For one maker that exists, for one more there’s a person who will do it for you, and for the rest it’s a matter of archives, collectors’ notes or other clues. This is the short version; the maker table further down has the detail.

Free list you can check yourself	Mosler, 1886–1992, from the company’s own website of 19991
Lookup on request	Chubb lock numbers, by the curator behind the Chubb Archive2
Original registers in an archive	Chubb, Milner, Chatwood, Chatwood-Milner and Hobbs Hart, at The London Archives (CLC/B/002)3
Collectors’ dated examples	Milner, John Tann, Ratner, Chatwood
No register found	Diebold, Herring-Hall-Marvin, Hall’s, Victor, York, Meilink, Cary, Schwab, Detroit Safe Co.
What a number never tells you	The combination, the value or who bought the safe

Where is the serial number on an old safe?

Where the number sits depends on the maker. These are the places our sources record:

Maker	Where to look
Chubb	On the lock, not the body: preferably the bolt head, otherwise a plate fixed to the lock case; on small locks, the forend8
Milner	The key, which usually carries the safe’s own number, and the body: one 1918 safe had “AD 606” on its key and “D 606” on the body910
John Tann	Stamped into the top moving bolt, visible on the door edge when the door is open5
Ratner	On the lock; the safe itself also had a number, such as No. 42393 on a 1925 Grade 71112
Mosler	Before 1946, the “handle number”, usually stamped on the handle; from 1946 to 1989, a lot number with a dash, such as 12214-47
Diebold	Owners report numbers on the door edge, a hinge or the bolt work, sometimes with a separate model code13
Meilink	A numbered label plate giving the fire class, A, B or C, on mid-century safes14
Hamilton (modern)	A label or plate on the door or inside the body, often next to the UL rating1516

If you can’t see a number without taking something apart, stop there. Lock covers and bolt work aren’t owner jobs. Photograph what you can see and let a safe engineer read the rest the next time the lock is serviced.

Safe numbers, lock numbers and numbers that aren’t serials

Before you look anything up, work out what kind of number you’ve found. An old safe can carry two serial numbers, one for the safe and one for the lock, plus several numbers that aren’t serials at all.

Lock numbers

The famous Chubb registers are lock registers. Chubb stamped a number on every lock it made from 1819; towards the end of the 19th century, when it offered “Best” and “Medium” qualities of some locks, only the best quality kept a number, and in 1936 it stopped numbering locks altogether.⁸ So the Chubb Archive dates the lock, and the safe is usually the same age or a little older. A Chubb lock with no number, or only a code such as 3G110, is probably later than 1936.¹⁷

Locks wear out and get swapped, so the lock’s date is the lock’s date. If it disagrees with the plate wording and the address by decades, suspect a replacement rather than a mistake in the books.

Safe numbers

Other makers numbered the safe. On many Milner safes the key carries the same number as the safe, which is why a stray Milner key can sometimes be matched to its safe.⁹ Ratner numbered both its locks and its safes, and the dated examples collectors have gathered are mostly lock numbers, so treat the two sequences separately.¹¹¹² Chubb kept “lock and safe number registers” from 1819, so its safes were recorded too, and the Chubb Archive lists its Chubb safe equipment registers and the Milner lock and safe registers as “being compiled”.³²

Numbers that aren’t serials

• Fire label numbers. A label from Underwriters Laboratories or the Safe Manufacturers National Association carries its own number. When owners asked Mosler whether its serials were the same as these label numbers, its FAQ answered by describing its own numbering and pointing them to its date list.⁷
• Model numbers. Mosler’s 3360-A is a size and a label class (60 inches high, 33 wide inside, “A” label), not a serial.⁷
• Casting numbers. A number cast into the middle of the inside of a Tann door is the plate’s casting number. One owner’s “patent 6256” turned out to be exactly that.⁵
• Weights and makers’ marks. The stampings on the edge of one Milner body were the body maker’s mark and the weight, 7 cwt 1 qr 2 lb: handy for the removal men, useless for dating.¹⁰
• Badges. The “212” on a Milner badge is the boiling point of water in degrees Fahrenheit, Milner’s fire-resistance claim, not a model or serial.¹⁸
• Time lock movements. These have numbers of their own. Collectors’ records give serial ranges for Hall’s and Consolidated time locks, starting at 1001 for the first two-movement Joseph L. Hall locks.¹⁹

Serial number lookup by maker: which records survive

Here is every maker we’ve researched so far in one table. Each row says whether a register survives, where it is, what to do if it doesn’t, and links to the serial number or dating section of our page on that maker. “None found” means we searched and found nothing published or catalogued; it doesn’t prove nothing survives in a basement somewhere.

Maker	Register?	Where, or who to ask	What to do instead
Chubb (UK)	Yes: lock registers 1819–1936; lock and safe number registers from 1819	Chubb Archive curator for lock numbers; originals at The London Archives, CLC/B/00223	Read the lock number; plate wording and address give a range
Milner (UK)	Yes, not indexed: lock and key registers, day book, depot and sale ledgers, 1857–1954	The London Archives, CLC/B/002; the Chubb Archive lists Milner registers as “being compiled”32	Compare with collectors’ dated numbers; a letter prefix means 1889 or later4
Chatwood and Chatwood-Milner (UK)	Yes: Chatwood lock and safe registers and progress books, 1864–1956; Chatwood-Milner order books and safe progress book, 1955–1971	The London Archives, CLC/B/0023	Dated examples, model names and the Bolton or Shrewsbury address
Hobbs Hart (UK)	Company records, 1887–1985	The London Archives, CLC/B/002/HH3	“Ltd” on the plate means 1887 or later20
John Tann (UK)	No: the record books reportedly went astray when Tann closed its offices21	Collectors on antique-locks.com and safeman.org.uk22	Address, “List” grade plate and collectors’ dated numbers
Ratner (UK)	None published	Dated lock numbers from the History of Locks Museum’s collection11	Compare lock numbers; the name means 1888 or later
Mosler (US)	Yes: the company’s own list of the first number each year, 1886–19921	Free, in our Mosler entry. There’s no factory to ask: Mosler went bankrupt in 2001 and Diebold bought its security business2324	Work out which numbering system you have first
Diebold (US)	None found	Owners compare dated safes on forums13	Plate wording, city, decoration and locks
Herring, Marvin and Herring-Hall-Marvin (US)	None found	n/a	Firm’s name, town and patent dates
Hall’s (US)	None found for safes	Collectors’ serial ranges exist for Hall’s time lock movements19	Name, city and patent dates; a time lock dates itself
Victor (US)	None found	In 1934 a Yale & Towne official told the FBI Victor had passed to Yale & Towne about 1925 “with such records as they had”; where they went is unknown25	Door lettering, dial and handle
York (US)	None found	Diebold took over York’s patents, service contracts and orders in 194626; the York County History Center is the place to ask about local company papers	Wording on the door, construction and award dates
Meilink (US)	None found	FireKing International took over the Meilink line in 199127	Name, address and fire labels
Cary (US)	None found	n/a	Name, paintwork and patent dates
Schwab (US)	None found	If the records survived, they would have passed to SentrySafe in 200828	Name, label class, castors and measurements
Detroit Safe Co. (US)	None found	n/a	Name, address and door frame
J. & J. Taylor (Canada)	None found	n/a	Toronto address; “Limited” means 1912 or later, “Chubb-Mosler and Taylor” 1960 or later
Hamilton (US, modern)	No public lookup	A Hamilton dealer, with the serial and model from the label15	For an old “Hamilton, O.” safe, check the maker first

A few patterns stand out. The British registers survive largely because they ended up in one company’s hands. Chubb acquired Hobbs Hart in the 20th century and bought Chatwood-Milner, the 1956 merger of Chatwood and Milner, in 1958; those firms’ books sit in the same Chubb collection.³²⁹³⁰ Even so, many head-office records were lost when Chubb’s Queen Victoria Street office was destroyed in 1941, and the lock registers for July 1828 to August 1836 went with them.³⁸

The American picture is the opposite. Firms merged, were sold and closed, and nobody we know of kept their production books. Mosler is the happy exception, and only because it put its own list on its website in 1999, two years before it went under.¹²³ We haven’t found a register for J. & J. Taylor’s Toronto Safe Works either, or for most smaller makers. If yours isn’t in the table, the clues in our guide on how to date an old safe from its plate, address and lock work for any maker, and our free How old is my safe? tool turns them into a date range.

Worked example: dating a Mosler by its handle number

The safe at the top of this page is a Mosler screw-door bank safe lettered for the Tallulah State Bank in Louisiana, now on display at Cross Keys Bank in Tallulah. Its handle is stamped with a six-figure number, and Mosler’s list turns it into a year in four steps.⁶

1. Read the number. It begins 27159; the last digit runs round the curve of the handle. We don’t need it.
2. Identify the system. A number on the handle with no dash is a “handle number”, which Mosler used before 1946. Its FAQ said those numbers had six digits.⁷
3. Find the year. Mosler’s first number for 1917 was 271009 and for 1918 was 273388. Anything from 271590 to 271599 falls between them: 1917.¹
4. Cross-check. The lettering reads “The Mosler Safe Co., Hamilton, O.”, and Mosler’s Hamilton works began production in October 1891, so the town fits a 1917 date.³¹

Result: made in 1917, according to Mosler’s own list. That’s about as good as a serial number lookup gets, and it’s still a guide rather than proof. The list skips 1922, and its numbers for 1886 to 1890 have five digits even though the FAQ said pre-1946 numbers had six.¹⁷ The full table and the later lot-and-dash system are in our Mosler entry.

How to ask for a lookup, and what to send

“I have an old safe, how old is it?” is a hard question to answer by email. A short, specific request with a number and a photo is much easier, and it helps to send it to the right place first.

What to send

1. The number exactly as stamped, including any letters, dashes or prefixes, and where you found it: bolt head, handle, top bolt, key bow.
2. A sharp photo of the number, plus the maker’s plate or lettering, the keyhole or dial, and the whole safe from the front.
3. The outside height, width and depth.
4. The wording on the plate, letter for letter, including any address.
5. What you already know, such as where the safe came from, with family stories marked as stories.
6. One safe per message. Two safes in one email is how numbers get mixed up.

That last line matters. Because many old Chubb locks are still in use, the Archive only publishes details of a lock with its owner’s express permission, so say clearly whether you’re happy for yours to appear.² Its contact page doesn’t mention a fee. It does say that requests for detailed information about a serially numbered Chubb safe, as opposed to a lock, go to Gunnebo UK in Wolverhampton, which it describes as holding the original Chubb safe records; that page was last updated in 2016, so check the address before you write.³²

Asking The London Archives to search

The London Archives is a public archive, not a safe expert, so give it a document to look in rather than a photo to identify. Quote the reference CLC/B/002 and the maker, say which register you’re interested in (Milner’s lock and key registers, for example, or Chatwood’s safe registers) and give your number and the date range your other clues suggest.³

First ask through its enquiry form whether it can take the search. If it can, you’ll get a link to apply and pay. The fee is £86 an hour including VAT, up to 2½ hours per application, and the work is usually done within four weeks; the archive won’t take on extensive research projects.³⁴ No archive can promise the page you need survived. If you’re in London, a morning in the reading room with a History Card costs nothing but the train fare.³³

Whatever you find, we’d love to hear it. Every number that’s matched to a date makes the next owner’s lookup a little easier.

What a serial number can’t tell you

A serial number is a date clue and, with luck, a line in a ledger. Owners often hope for more. These are the hopes that turn up most in searches:

The safe deposit point comes from Mosler’s own FAQ of 1999.⁷ If the real problem is a locked door, the number is still worth recording, because the technician will want it, but the job itself belongs to a qualified safe engineer: in the UK the Master Locksmiths Association lists vetted ones, and in the US the Safe & Vault Technicians Association has a technician search.³⁵³⁶ Our guide to getting into an old safe you’re locked out of covers the options and costs, and what old safes are actually worth covers prices.

Frequently asked questions