First Republic moneyboxes, treasury boxes and keys to them, part 2 - Tresoria moneyboxes

Looms were very popular in the 1920s and became a common part of all households, so there were quite a lot of them and a large number still survive. Sadly, as I wrote in the last installment, the vast majority were without keys and often with damaged locks. And since I think many of you have one at home, here you will find a detailed description of each type in my collectionand detailed photos of the mechanisms and keys that can help you repair your cassette and make a matching key.

I usually make the key out of any iron I can find in my workshop, no special features are needed, it's not a super stressed part. All you need is a bit of manual dexterity and a set of needle files and plenty of time, but given the current weather it's good fun for long winter evenings.

For the most part, I don't know what the original key looked like, so I'm not even trying to copy the original design, but I'm all about functionality. It's still worth leaving a little space on the key to stamp the cassette number, so it's clear which cassette the key belongs to. After all, the financial institution itself stamped the number on the cash box for this reason.

About Tresoria

Tresoria was a famous company located in Jinonice, Prague. Its history began in 1879, unfortunately in 1948 the company was nationalized and that was basically the end of it. The company mainly specialised in the production of fireproof safes and other safety deposit boxes and its safe doors are still in the headquarters of the Czech National Bank in Prague. The following cash boxes also come from the production of this company.

Cash box of the City Savings Bank in Královské Vinohrady

In my opinion, one of the first types. There is no patent number on the bottom, the lock is quite sophisticated compared to later types. The cash box has a distinctive logo of the money institution. There are cut-outs on the back to show how much is saved in the money box and on the other side is a slogan to encourage savers to save.

The lock contains 4 locks which have been numbered 1-4, so each lock could have a different configuration, either way it buildsThe locks can be freely rearranged, so even if you copy this particular key of mine, the locks should rearrange to make it work. Either way you will need to drill out the 3 rivets of the lock, rebuild the locks or choose your own combination and make the key accordingly.

Treasury - CIVIL-SERVICE Bailout in PRAGUE - NUSLÍCH

One of the most widespread types of cash boxes. Here, financial institutions have probably already realised that if a saver wants to get his money, he can always and a more sophisticated lock will only mean more damage to the cash box. I also think I can already see an attempt to simplify and cheapen the whole design, which is to be expected with the growing popularity of the strings. There was simply a need to produce cheaper and faster.

The most important feature, however, is the so-called universal key, which basically means that the pawnshop only needed one key to unlock all the boxes of this type. What this means for you is that if you copy the key 100% correctly it will fit your lockbox, and I even have the original key for this type of lock as the only lockbox.

So far I have two versions of these lockboxes with identical locks. You can tell by the patent numbers stamped on the opening door of the cash box. The two types are almost identical, differing only in the design of the openings for coins and banknotes.

Note: There are still 6-sided cash boxes bearing the name Tresoreta. Unfortunately, I have not found one yet, so I cannot give more information. Maybe one of you has it, preferably with a key, and we will inflate this miniseries by one more part.

Also, there were also caskets in the shape of books, usually with St. Wenceslas, Masaryk or Alois Rashin on the cover, but I don't have those either. And that's all from today's part. In the next part we will look at moneyboxes from other manufacturers.

Below the article you will find scanned keys with measurements, so just print the attachment, check if the measurements match, or enlarge/reduce as needed and glue on a piece of sheet metal and saw out according to the drawing.