Old Mosler Safe - Questions

[Farnsworth]

Old Safe inherited with the Church building... How do I get in? What is it worth? How heavy is it? Who moves these beauties?
The dial seems to be stuck in the 10 and 2 position as if the door is partially open (but I don't currently know the combination)?
The number on the handle seems to be 119849, which puts it at about year 1894 (according to another post on this forum).
I'm not sure if the pins are out on the left side door or just the coverings (and I have no idea what the green shoelace is doing there).

Any help would be helpful,
I can get more pictures
Thanks in advance

[Squelchtone]

DO NOT MOVE THE DIAL

your safe is already open, pull the right door towards you by grabbing that handle.. just pull straight towards you, it is a heavy door.

again, DO NOT touch the dial again, or you will lock yourself out.

[L4R3L2]

And, if you lock yourself out, you'll want to knock yourself out.

[MartinHewitt]

The marks on the dial are cute!

[Squelchtone]

Farnsworth,

Did you manage to pull the doors open?

They should look like this example I found on google:


To answer your other questions:

It's worth whatever someone is willing to pay for one, often moving costs can make a safe hard to sell or even give away for free. I'd say on the craigslist market probably $750-$1200 for the safe, if it was at an auction house and you waited a year, maybe the right buyer would pay up towards $2500 for it.

It weighs 2000-4000 pounds.

A towing company with a big flatbed truck can move that safe. It may require either the flat bed truck and their winch, or possibly a fork lift. a professional safe technician with a trailer and the right knowledge can move that safe as well, you'd have to call around your area to find someone. Not all locksmith shops do safe work or move safes, but they may recommend someone or even a rigging or moving company that they work with.

The things you call pins, we call them bolts. Based on the angle of both handles, your bolts are retracted. Because they are retracted, there is a piece of metal blocking the dial from turning, which is why it appears stuck. if the door bolts were extended your handles would be turned facing down towards the ground at 6 o'clock.

We would love to see a photo of the inside when you get it open.

Thanks!
Squelchtone

[L4R3L2]

I'm pretty sure the pins he's referring to are the hinge pins, and the covers are the finials. It looks like one of the missing finials is on top of the safe.

Yes, be very careful when you open the doors in case the hinge pins are either cut or removed. You don't want the door falling on you or onto the floor. I would use a rope attached to the handles to try opening the doors. They're probably just stuck. But watch those doors!

[Squelchtone]

I'm pretty sure the pins he's referring to are the hinge pins, and the covers are the finials. It looks like one of the missing finials is on top of the safe.

Yes, be very careful when you open the doors in case the hinge pins are either cut or removed. You don't want the door falling on you or onto the floor. I would use a rope attached to the handles to try opening the doors. They're probably just stuck. But watch those doors!

ohhh, I missed that detail.. you're right.. not enough/too much coffee this morning!

[Farnsworth]

Thank you for all your help guys! Especially Squelchtone, the information on what I can do with it once it is open is very helpful!

Ok, now to the current problem: I can't seem to be able to pull the doors open.
I'm sure that the dial has been moved many times (back and forth between the 2 positions that it is stuck roughly 30 number apart) before I even touched it. So, sorry I moved it as well ;(
When I pull on the door it seems to be stuck hard against something... I can hear a rattle behind the top right corner of the left door (left from my position facing it) and one be hind the top right corner of the right door. If I had to guess I would say that the sticking point is in the middle where the doors meet... but I'm no locksmith.

So, why are they stuck?

Additional information that might help (with pictures):
The doors are not fully closed. - They are both open about 10mm on the top and bottom... I can't tell if they are leaning on each other or not.
I can push the doors inward. - Not fully, till they are closed, but I can get them to move about 3mm back toward the closed position.
I haven't pulled the doors crazy hard. - I am probably scared after the comments about the doors falling off, so I have included some more detailed picture of the hinges.
There is this weird green string. - Now, this one is quite a mystery to me... I have no idea what it purpose could be (or maybe it just a red herring), but it must have been put there when the door was last open. Is it keeping the door shut by being tied to something inside??

Pictures for extra information:






Anyways, thank you guys so much, glad to have others in the mystery with me. I love learning about this stuff (even if I have only ever picked a practice lock a few times

[Squelchtone]

Do the door handles move at all? Can you turn the Left door's handle so it is straight up and down, and then try to move the Right door's handle all the way to the Left and then try to pull the Right door open.. the doors are overlapped so the right one has to pull open first.

Maybe attach some rope to the handle and stand back 10 feet and give the rope a good yank see if the door swings open or falls out of the safe..

stay safe!

[Farnsworth]

So, the left door handle doesn't seem to move at all... I'm not even sure if it is meant to. The right one moves, but not any further clockwise. I'm sure I could move it to the 6'oclock position, but I thought it may lock me out.... I guess it's worth a try!
Unfortunately, the there is only about 5 feet from the front for the safe to the nearest wall... I don't have much room to attempt the rope method.
I'll try that next time I can get over to the building.

Edit: Spelling

[L4R3L2]

You would have to push the doors fully closed in order to turn the handles. Start with the left door, then the right. As long as you don't touch the dial in the process, you should not get locked out and should be able to turn the handles back and forth without worry. It may be that the bolts are not fully retracted, and working the handles back and forth may get them to where they retract fully and you can open the doors.

[Squelchtone]

fun fact: I always unscrew the finials facing up on the hinges to see if someone put the safe's combination on a piece of rolled up paper down the hole the finial screws into.

[GWiens2001]

fun fact: I always unscrew the finials facing up on the hinges to see if someone put the safe's combination on a piece of rolled up paper down the hole the finial screws into.

Any luck with that?

Gordon