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Cawi 7113/7123

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MartinHewitt

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Post Fri Mar 12, 2021 6:13 pm

Cawi 7113/7123

That is a Cawi 7123 in operation, which is described on pages 405ff in Graham Pulford's book. He writes that this lock has 22 levers. The top most lever has indeed the number 22, but there are two warding discs where two numbers are skipped. So it has really only 18 levers.

https://vimeo.com/521533650

The German national bank (Reichsbank/Bundesbank) and other agencies had the requirement, that the key lock for their vaults needs to be basically unpickable. A requirement, which is unimaginable in modern safe market. Cawi was competing at this time with Kromer to supply these unpickable locks. The agency certifying the locks and safes/vaults was the German post (Reichspost/Bundespost). (If you see something beginning with RP or BP on the pork pie style locks it is referring to the German post.) The lock expert at Kromer developed some kind of a rubber key and demonstrated opening Cawi's lock. I guess it was some kind of impressioning. Cawi had to buy afterwards lock parts from Kromer to sell basically a copy of Kromer's Protector BP55K (<= BP!) to the banks. Kromer has built at least 650000 Protector locks from the 1870s to about 2000.
In case you wonder ... Martin Hewitt is a fictional detective in stories by Arthur Morrison:
Martin Hewitt, Investigator Chronicles of Martin Hewitt
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safecracker33

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Post Sun Mar 14, 2021 1:46 pm

Re: Cawi 7113/7123

A thing of Beauty.
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mastersmith

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Post Thu Mar 18, 2021 7:55 pm

Re: Cawi 7113/7123

I always enjoy your history's Martin. Thank you for taking the time!
"All ye who come this art to see / to handle anything must cautious be...." Benjamin Franklin

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