Buying safety deposit boxes from removed from closed bank?

[Cadillac Bill]

I have found some safety deposit boxes in a warehouse. Several blocks of safety deposit boxes, maybe about of four feet high and four feet wide containing multiple boxes. I can move them, no big problem.

Keys are missing and all boxes are still locked.

Is there likely articles left still behind? I could buy some and drill the locks.

Is there a procedure that banks do when selling off blocks of safety deposit boxes. Could they have been emptied?

[Squelchtone]

Moving this post to Ask a Locksmith - This Old Safe

[cledry]

How do you know they are from a bank? Anyway typically if a bank is closing all the people who have safe deposits with them will be contacted to remove the contents. Any that can't be reached will be opened by a locksmith and the contents safely stored for a period of time and then often auctioned off.

Most safe deposit boxes I see on the used market that are locked tend to come from hotels. It isn't easy moving safe deposit nests with the doors unlocked and flapping about, so they are locked and then the keys get misplaced. Again any that they don't have keys to will have been opened already.

As an aside. A locksmith I used to work for always threw a few coins and washers etc. into old safes that were practically worthless, then he would lock them and sell for more than they would have sold for if open.

[WestCoastPicks]

If they are in storage I would say %99 chance they are empty and that the keys are locked in the top left box. This was common practice when I delivered these. Sometimes the locksmith keeps the keys for security reasons, also to retain his/her services should they be installed again.

I wouldn't expect to find anything inside of them. But I bet you could have quite a few nice locks to play with.

[femurat]

As an aside. A locksmith I used to work for always threw a few coins and washers etc. into old safes that were practically worthless, then he would lock them and sell for more than they would have sold for if open.

That's pure evil

But I bet you could have quite a few nice locks to play with.

Not if he drills them

[C locked]

Thats UPselling right there. Schrodinger Style. Sell the potential

[WestCoastPicks]

But I bet you could have quite a few nice locks to play with.

Not if he drills them

Nooooooooo! Rake those puppies out and sell/gift them out without keys to the community!

[Squelchtone]

But I bet you could have quite a few nice locks to play with.

Not if he drills them

Nooooooooo! Rake those puppies out and sell/gift them out without keys to the community!

We haven't seen any pics, but gonna guess they are lever locks and thus not rakeable like a pin tumbler lock would be.

Squelchtone

[Robotnik]

We haven't seen any pics, but gonna guess they are lever locks and thus not rakeable like a pin tumbler lock would be.

It'll earn a tip of the hat from me if he's able to rake 'em, though .

[GWiens2001]

And I'd want to see the rake he uses.

They do make picks for them, but most locksmiths I know use specialized tools to destructively open the lock and replace it. The locks are pretty inexpensive.

Gordon

[kwoswalt99-]

Thats UPselling right there. Schrodinger Style. Sell the potential

[WestCoastPicks]

Thats UPselling right there. Schrodinger Style. Sell the potential

Oh I see, so before you open it, it is both full of money and empty? Once you open it, you collapse the wave and.....
Another dead cat?