hey so, i work for the distributor of guard padlocks in Canada, and i just happened upon your post here via a search on duckduckgo.com
first, http://guardpadlocks.com is indeed the homepage of guard padlocks and they are manufactured in China (P.R.O.C on the case)
i believe the brand goes back to the at least the 1960’s…
the story i’m told in relation to my company is that the factory produced a brand of padlocks called Gino to compete with Italian products like Viro and Cisa in the European market.
My company (Canaropa) began importing these Gino locks under the name Guard sometime in the 1960’s - it wasn’t until the early 90’s that we bought the exclusive rights to distribute them under the Guard name in North America, at which point we modernized the brand as seen at guardpadlocks.com
so, i’m not certain, but i think the guard brand’s inception was related to our north american distribution in the 60’s
we do still have some of the old packaging that you’re describing.
the pink boxes contained single locking shackle versions and there was also an identical blue box that contained the double locking variant. (photo attached)
we stopped purchasing single locking shackles in the early nineties with the branding update, but again, i can’t say if the factory stopped producing them at that point.
regardless of what we’ve done with the line here in canada, it’s hard to pin down exactly when that lock could have been produced, as the factory may still be selling them with that packaging.
generally, they are regarded as a good quality padlock and we distribute them to a variety of markets locally, from municipalities, school boards, law enforcement to private companies like waste disposal, storage facilities and such to end users in carded retail packaging.
hope that helps provide some insight.
cheers
[unknown]
