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Antique Lock Brands
Locks have an immensely long and interesting history. As long ago as 2000 BCE, the Assyrians used wooden locks with keys, called pin locks, an arrangement of rope and a cylindrical piece of hollowed wood, still used in some parts of the Third World today. By the addition of more pins the modern tumbler lock developed, and the warded lock, the first to use keys as we know them today, followed. It is only in recent times that mechanical locks have begun to be replaced by electromagnetic devices.
Antique and vintage locks were used for a wide variety of devices. Locks of course are used on doors, but also on jewellery, purses and briefcases, restraining devices like handcuffs and manacles, and furniture, to name the most usual ones, and there is a wide variety of padlocks. Many antique and vintage safes used locks as well. Today, some of these antique locks have become collectible, with examples from lock-makers such as US Express Co, Chubb, Amex, and Yale demanding significant prices, up to 4 figure amounts in some cases. There are organisations such as the West Coast Lock Collectors Association which devote themselves to the hobby of collecting antique locks .
Door locks were produced by Schlage, Yale, and Baldwin, among others, and these lock-makers are still the popular brands today. Yale locks are so well-known that they have become a writer's clich2 in fiction and are almost used as a generic term. They began making locks in colonial USA in the 1840's, creating high security hand-made bank locks, later creating the innovative combination locks for the bank trade, and using the Assyrian pin lock principles from 2000 BCE, invented the cylinder lock that characterises all deadlocks today. Corbin locks, later to become the American Hardware Corporation, were contemporary with Yale, but never gained the same public recognition. Schlage has only been in business for some 85 years, and today produces both modern locks and antique reproductions of their earlier models. Baldwin, the other primary American brand name, has been in business (as Baldwin Hardware) for about 50 years.
Although all of these brands are best-known generally for their modern security hardware, Yale, Corbin (American Hardware) and Masterlock are all makers of recognised antique locks. A quick glance through a list of lock patents in the US shows that these three companies, in their various incarnations, are responsible for the bulk of the innovations in lock technology through the 19th and early 20th centuries, and they remain in the forefront today. The attraction to these reproduction locks probably lies in the same fascination that people have for the trappings and history of other pre-20th century technology, such as horse-drawn vehicles, printing presses, and guns.
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Antique Locks