masraum - It really feels good after 30+ years on call 24/7/365
Best lock is Schlage of course.
No but really I only use Schlage out of respect and my connection but if I were to really need to step it up I would go commercial grade Schlage (using on my new garage/shop), Sargent, Baldwin, Medeco to name a few.
Most of the time safety deposit boxes are either empty, full of pictures
, or just legal estate paperwork. The IRS stuff was usually empty as the "customer" knew what was coming their way.
Safes were the usual items to be expected in business but some times in residential cases some estates got unexpected windfalls and surprises. In estates I would typically unlock and leave the opening to the client with out me viewing.
I worked in a tourist area and had many a roadside negotiation with bikini clad tubers with lock outs or lost keys.
And drunk skiers waiting until Sunday night
ready to go home when no one turned in their keys to lost and found.
Those were some of the reasons why I went to industrial services, better enviorment, always paying customers, and the benefits raising a family.
The reason I needed to go Union was I specialized in industrial chemical plant security and here in N.Y. unions rule.
But on a better note here are a couple of pictures of a lock from about 1735-1740 and one of the safes I just sold from about 1840.
I live in a pre-colonial area so kind of just found an attachment to the very old. My largest part of my collection are Smokehouse padlocks from the late 19th century to about the 1940s.
Maybe this is why my Porsche is special to me - it is built as strong as and as precise as a lock