Speculation offers that the need to safeguard valuables dates back to primitive man who may have first buried his fondest possessions beneath the heaviest stone.

Then, 4,000 years ago, the Egyptians developed the first lock. It involved a three-foot-long wooden key, studded with pegs, being inserted into a large, hollow bolt to hold a door shut. The pegs raised hidden pins to keep the door in place.

Chronologically, the Romans were next to advance the art of safeguarding valuables. They notched and grooved locks of iron or bronze which, unfortunately, proved easy to defeat. So they took pains to disguise the vulnerable keyhole and even occasionally laced the container with potentially lethal devices, such as darts, pistols and finger traps. The containers were made of limestone, the doors of hand-hewn timbers.

As civilization advanced, so did the art of safe and vault making. Even ordinary families could own items of value with some assurance they could protect them from thieves, floods and fire.

The ancient Greeks later turned some of their temples into private safe deposit repositories -- probably because they were among the sturdiest of their buildings -- in exchange for contributions to support temple rituals. But the Persians later destroyed the temples and carted away the valuables.

In the middle ages, royalty lived in fortified castles, which were pretty much just huge vaults made to live in. Ornate personal storage boxes made by artisans rose to the fore at this time, many of the boxes becoming as valuable as their contents.

Technological innovation led to tumbler locks (which eliminated the keyhole), combination locks and timelocks. By the 1800s, imposing safes were built to withstand the latest explosives developed by Civil War munitions makers. But effective safes also needed to be too massive for someone simply to haul away and secure enough to withstand the peril of fire.

The Diebold standard
Against this backdrop came Carl (Charles) Diebold, a German immigrant safemaker, who saw the market potential in the United States for the manufacture of quality safes. In this new land were emerging financial institutions that needed to concentrate on the money needs of a growing nation and its need to establish credit, make loans to buy land and finance young industries. The need for good safes was everywhere. But so were the bandits of the day – the so-called yegg men – mobile bandits armed with specialized tools who roamed from town to town in search of easy prey.

Square doors with square frames were susceptible to being wedged open, or providing enough space into which gunpowder could be poured and sealed in an effort to blow the safe door open. Safe manufacturers switched to a tongue-and-groove-designed door to thwart the wedges. That’s when the bandits concocted their “soup,” an explosive mixture of nitric acid and glycerol. The result was nitroglycerin, capable of a ferocious explosion. Safemakers then built mechanized screw-lock doors as a deterrent.

Carl Diebold’s safes went through all these iterations, and more, in the perpetual battle with determined thieves. Overall, Diebold safes fared well, thanks to strong manufacturing leadership and talented workers who knew how to build the best safes in the world. The company went on to earn the reputation as the authority on safe and vault jobs of particularly demanding size, security and intricacy.

By the 1900s it was not unheard of for vault and safemakers like Diebold to produce massive vault doors – many of them 18-to-27 inches thick – and weighing 40 tons. Yet, their tapered bearing hinges would allow them to be swung open with just one finger while an obstruction as small as a paper clip could keep the door from closing.

A reputation established
Diebold’s history and reputation were both built – solid as steel – on our acknowledged excellence in making safes and vaults to some of the most exacting tolerances the industry had ever seen. The degree of individual workmanship involved was high. In terms of fit, finishes, interiors, longevity and dependability, Diebold products were unsurpassed by any other company in the field.

Thanks to the advances in physical security, the bank bandits of the 1930s turned from safecracking to becoming stick-up men, gun-toting criminals who took cash from tellers at gunpoint and sped away in fast cars, oftentimes with a hostage. Reliable bank alarms and surveillance cameras, forensic technology and fast police response times have proven to be effective countermeasures.

So highly regarded were Diebold safes and vaults that they were in demand by governments, heads of states, financial institutions and commercial concerns the world over. We made safes and vaults both large and small, shiny and subdued (using polished stainless steel finish plates), imposing and beautiful, conventional and even waterproof.

In the 1950s, Diebold was one of the first manufacturers to modernize safe and vault design and construction. It offered its Basic door in 1954. It was the first completely redesigned vault door in more than 50 years and appealed to forward-thinking designers and bankers. The novel and revolutionary Wedge-Lock and Rotary Wedge-Lock doors followed n the 1960s.

Here’s a snippet from a Diebold newsletter in May 1957 that describes one bank vault project which highlights the company’s construction prowess:

“In April, Diebold was awarded a contract to build the world’s most secure large bank vault for one of the leading banks in New York City. It is designed to provide greater security than any vault of comparable size ever built. It will have maximum resistance to burglary, robbery, fire, water, bombing, shelling, riots and earthquake. The installation will be of “submarine,” or double-shell construction, having 40,320 cubic feet of working space and will require one million pounds of steel and special alloys to construct. It will have two 25-inch thick doors, each weighing approximately 25 tons. It is expected the project will take about 18 months to build and install this completely air conditioned vault. The vault will include six compartments for the storage of securities and will provide working space for a normal complement of 30 men and women who will work daily on the $5 billion of securities housed there.”

Most of these products were made by the dedicated craftsmen who populated Diebold’s Plant 1 facility in Canton, Ohio, and who worked in that state-of-the art manufacturing center built long ago exclusively for the safe and vault manufacturing trade.

Some of the construction projects were so creative, such interesting blends of the useful and the attractive, that the public was invited in to watch the work in progress.

Changing standards
Things changed in the early 1980s. Not in terms of the excellence of our products, but in terms of insurance and regulatory standards and, consequently, in what our customers asked us to make for them.

In 1980, Underwriters Laboratories (U.L.) created specifications for the testing of vault doors and modular vault walls for burglary resistance. Up to this point, vault doors were constructed of solid steel that was machined and polished.  But then, U.L. introduced the oxy-acetylene cutting torch to the vulnerability equation. The ability of that tool to cut through steel with ease meant future vault doors needed to abide by more rigid burglary- resistive standards.

Manufacturers were forced to consider materials other than steel to make their vault doors in order to be able to withstand the testing. Cost was certainly a factor, too. As a result, certain materials that could withstand the heat from burglars’ torches (such as copper) were eliminated from consideration due to their expense.

Most manufacturers turned to developing high-strength pre-cast concrete vault doors with a stainless steel covering. 

We decided we did not want to bring the concrete business into any of our existing facilities. The sheer dirtiness of the operation and how it would affect other products in the plant was our concern.  So, we turned to local pre-casters to work with us and eventually settled upon a partner, Lindsay Concrete Products of Canal Fulton, Ohio. We joined with them to develop high-strength concrete to make modular vault panels and vault doors and together designed and developed extremely effective concrete modular vaults and concrete vault doors.

We still own the designs and the tooling for our old safes and the pre-cast models, but Lindsay became the contract manufacturer for pre-cast products and continues to serve in that role for us today. They now have facilities strategically located in Colorado Springs, Co., and in Alachua, Fla., to help to defer freight charges for deliveries.

There is no longer much demand for the elaborate safes we once produced. Our customers are not willing to pay the costs involved for such intricate design and detail work when more economical means to safeguard their valuables exist, such as the pre-cast construction method. Financial institutions, understandably, want the lowest cost product they can find that will achieve the security standards they want, or are required to meet.  

It would be inaccurate, however, to suggest that Diebold doesn’t make non-modular safes anymore. It does. Some of our safe products are built at King Safe in China, while others are built through contract manufacturers in California and in Canada using our designs and tooling. King Safe is a joint-venture partner with Diebold in China, in which we have a 50 percent owner interest. So, just because these safes may come from China does not mean they are not made by Diebold.    

What is modular vault construction?

One of the most effective means of vault construction today uses specially prepared and assembled modular panels. Diebold was one of the first companies to embrace the modular vault concept. Thousands of our modular vault systems are in service today.

We have been producing modular vaults for several decades in a history of vault and safe-making that dates back 150 years. Much of our amassed knowledge has gone into developing our comprehensive modular vault line, ranging from the Class M vault for universities, health care facilities, retailers, grocers and other merchants, up to the Class III vault for maximum security.

Among the attributes of these panels are: The pre-engineered, factory-built concrete panels arrive on the job site fully cured and ready to be installed immediately. The panels are lighter and thinner than site-poured walls, allowing for flexibility when sizing for location. And, a modular vault can be expanded or relocated as customers’ needs change.

Every panel is made to Diebold’s exact specifications. We own the tooling. And we own the design. This ensures consistent quality from panel to panel, and virtually eliminates potential problems during installation. The process uses our exclusive high-density composite concrete mix. The panel is then cured to more than three times the hardness of typical site-poured concrete. Interlacing each panel are steel fibers – more than 200 pounds in every cubic yard of mix. A welded grid of reinforcement bars helps to resist penetration by drills, impact hammers, saws, torches and other mechanical and electrical tools. The final assembly method is so strong, it’s approved for all seismic zones.

And, as a final testament to quality, each panel passes those standards specified by U.L.