Help identifying 2 keys?

aliciaaandbilly

Hello! New to the forum and hoping someone can help identify two keys that I found on a fireplace mantle when moving into my 1925 Dutch Colonial Revival outside of NYC. They keys are very solid and definitely not for any of the locks I was able to find in our house. Wondering if they’re from a clock or piece of furniture?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Pschiffe

aliciaaandbilly wrote
Hello! New to the forum and hoping someone can help identify two keys that I found on a fireplace mantle when moving into my 1925 Dutch Colonial Revival outside of NYC. They keys are very solid and definitely not for any of the locks I was able to find in our house. Wondering if they’re from a clock or piece of furniture?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Those are “sliding door keys”. Sliding (pocket) doors with cup escutcheons, that fit within the wall when opened, required very short keys to avoid damage to the wood work.*

*adapted from 150 Years of Builders’ Hardware: Forms, Use & Lore by Maud L. Eastwood.

Pete Schifferli

[unknown]

aliciaaandbilly

Interesting! Have you ever seen keys like this for bypassing carriage doors? The main house still has all of its original doors (none of which are pocket doors), but we know from pictures provided by a previous owner that the garage originally had sliding carriage doors.

Pschiffe

aliciaaandbilly wrote
Interesting! Have you ever seen keys like this for bypassing carriage doors? The main house still has all of its original doors (none of which are pocket doors), but we know from pictures provided by a previous owner that the garage originally had sliding carriage doors.

Not likely, sliding carriage house doors usually used much heavier hardware. See images attached for typical sliding door lock and escutcheon taken from Norwalk Lock Co. Catalog 39, c.1939.

Pete Schifferli

[unknown]

aliciaaandbilly

Thank you so much for your help! I sent an email to the original owner’s niece to see if she can remember there ever being any pocket doors in the home, so I guess we’ll see what she says. Definitely a mystery!!