Posted 13 years ago
ted15960
(1 item)
I am hoping that someone can help me learn more about an elderly Corbin Lock Company part that was used on the top of an oak desk; specifically I'd like to know approximately when it was produced and what its purpose was.
The desk was left in the basement of a home in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, that my wife and I purchased 33 years ago. It was painted army green and had a metal-covered top. When we moved to our current home 21 years ago, we brought the desk along but ultimately it began falling apart. I decided to scrap the desk but was curious to see what was under the metal cladding and pleasantly surprised to discover a beautifully grained top made of solid, one-inch-thick, quarter-sawn oak planks. I saved the planks and am now refinishing them to make a kitchen table.
The attached photos show a brass latch or locking mechanism that was mounted near the edge of the desk's top. The plate is small, only about 2.25" long and .75" wide. The rectangle at the bottom is a spring-mounted door that pushes down into a cavity. The logo stamped on the plate led me to CCL Security Systems (http://www.cclsecurity.com/) which has some of the files of the old Corbin Lock Company. A helpful gentleman there said a Corbin catalog he has from 1928 shows a different logo, and he thinks this part pre-dates the catalog. Many thanks for any help.
Corbin Cabinet & Lock (CCL) had patent rights on a number of high security locks. If you could locate a patent number it might help with research. I tried to research one a few years ago and found many dead end streets getting information on the company. A guy that ran a country auction finally figured it out for me.
Thanks for the idea, fhrjr2, but there are no numbers on the part. I'm kicking myself because when I discarded the rest of desk, I didn't look for any identifiers in terms of who made it or when it might have been made. However, the sides, drawers, etc. seemed plain compared to the surprisingly exotic top.