Safecracking: The Trade, Its History, and How Safes Are Rated

What the Trade Means

Two LIST definitions set the vocabulary for non-destructive safe work:

• Manipulation. "An opening method for mechanical combination locks which uses the tolerances of that lock to determine an opening combination." Manipulation is the combination-lock counterpart to picking a keyed lock. See combination locks.
• Manipulation resistant / manipulation proof. LIST defines these as combination locks with features that prevent determining the combination without physical attack, either within a time limit or at all.

Destructive entry—drilling, cutting, or forcing—is a separate category, used when non-destructive work is not practical or when insurers and owners accept the damage. The LIST dictionary defines a relocking device as "any device intended to prevent normal opening of a safe as a result of an attack," in internal and external types, and a relock trigger as the part that activates it. A hardplate is "a tempered barrier placed between the lock and the outside of a safe to inhibit drilling."

Professional opening preserves the container when possible. Hollywood's stethoscope image oversimplifies both the skill and the equipment.

Yeggs and the Nitro Era

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, safecracking entered American crime history as a specialty. The United States Postal Inspection Service describes the "Yeggmen" as burglars and safecrackers "widely known for using nitroglycerin or dynamite to blow open safes," and says Pinkerton detectives coined the term after a thief signed a letter "John Yegg." Green's Dictionary of Slang records that the etymology is disputed: John Yegg, a John Yeager named in a 1904 San Francisco Chronicle report, and other origins have all been proposed. The criminal practice is better documented than the word's exact origin.

Explosive attacks on payroll and railroad safes drove manufacturers toward thicker doors, better materials, and secondary locking. The nitro era is remembered less for glamour than for the countermeasures it forced into bank and commercial containers.

Time Locks

A time lock removes the reward of a quick opening even when the combination is known. The LIST dictionary defines it as "a secondary device which prevents movement of a bolt or boltworks until a set amount of time has elapsed," normally set or activated at locking.

James Sargent and Sargent & Greenleaf (S&G) are central to the commercial history. S&G's own about page states that in 1873 Sargent, "using parts from locks and two 8-day kitchen clocks," invented what the company calls the first time lock for bank vaults, and that in 1874 he installed the first Sargent time lock in the First National Bank of Morrison, Illinois. Letters patent No. 186,369 for improvements in time-locks were granted to Sargent on January 16, 1877; the Supreme Court discussed that patent in Sargent v. Hall Safe & Lock Co., 114 U.S. 63 (1885). Earlier clock locks existed—the same case discusses prior patents such as Hollen's 1871 patent—so "first" is S&G's claim for its commercial bank-vault product, not an absolute claim that no earlier time mechanism had ever been attached to a lock. See James Sargent and time lock.

Relockers and Hardplate

Attack detection became part of safe design. Relocking devices, as the LIST definition states, freeze normal opening after an attack is detected. Hardplate stands between the lock and the outside to slow drilling. Together with time locks, these features shifted professional practice toward planned, authorized openings and away from the idea that knowing a combination was enough.

How Standards Rate Locks and Safes

Buyers and insurers rely on published ratings. Pin and Ward cites public catalog scope only for paywalled standards.

Combination locks: UL 768

UL 768 covers "combination locks intended for attachment on doors of safes, chests, vaults, and the like." Its scope states that the requirements "are intended to test the ability of combination locks to resist unauthorized opening of the combination locks by sense of sight, touch, or hearing," and that they "do not cover electronic locks." The LIST dictionary records the group ratings as listed in UL 768:

• Group 1: withstand 20 man-hours of expert manipulation, plus other UL 768 specifications.
• Group 1R: Group 1 plus X-ray resistance.
• Group 2: withstand "reasonable expert manipulation," plus other UL 768 specifications.
• Group 2M: withstand 2 man-hours of expert manipulation, plus other UL 768 specifications.

Those hour figures are lab-test criteria from the dictionary's summary of the standard. They are not instructions, and the full test methods are in the paywalled text.

Burglary-resistant safes: UL 687

UL 687 covers combination-locked burglary-resistant safes in classes including TL-15, TL-30, TRTL-30, the X6 variants, TRTL-60X6, and TXTL-60X6. The class names encode what the rating claims to resist (tools; torch and tools; torch, explosive, and tools) and, for some classes, a time figure. Pin and Ward does not reproduce the test procedures.

Europe: EN 1143-1

EN 1143-1 specifies requirements, classification, and test methods for resistance to burglary of safes, ATM safes, strongroom doors, and strongrooms. BSI's product page notes tool-attack tests that establish resistance values, plus explosive and gas tests. The standard itself cautions that considerably longer times are likely in real burglary attacks than in a test.

A rating describes a defined test. It is not a guarantee for every installation or every attack.

The Profession Today

Safe and vault work has its own trade association. The Safe and Vault Technicians Association (SAVTA) describes itself as devoted entirely to professional safe and vault technicians. Its history page states that Clay Miller founded SAVTA in 1986; that Safe & Vault Technology magazine first published that year; that the first SAFETECH convention was held in Los Angeles in February 1988; and that SAVTA was donated to ALOA in 1993 and remains a division of ALOA Security Professionals Association. SAVTA's Proficiency Registration Program grants safe-technician designations including Certified Professional Safeman (CPS) and Certified Master Safe Technician (CMST), and, through the International Association of Investigative Locksmiths (IAIL) committee process, forensic designations including Certified Forensic Professional Safe Technician (CFPST) and Certified Forensic Master Safe Technician (CFMST). The LIST dictionary also records the older NSO titles Certified Journeyman Safecracker (CJS) and Certified Master Safecracker (CMS).

Manipulation contests have long been part of that culture, first at ALOA conventions and later at SAFETECH. They are skill competitions among professionals, not public how-tos.

Ethics and Law

Authorized safe opening requires the owner's permission and, often, proof of ownership for insurers. Unauthorized opening is burglary. Nevada's NRS 205.060 addresses burglary with explosives separately, and NRS 205.080 covers possession of burglarious instruments with intent. Laws vary. This article gives no legal advice.

Related Topics

• Combination locks
• James Sargent
• Time lock
• Safes
• Forensic locksmithing
• Lockpicking
• UL 437

Sources