Help required to identify/date this padlock

ammofo

Hello everybody
I have just bought my first padlock and can’t find any info on it at all. (The key seems not to fit the lock, so a bit of a red herring!!)
3 main questions really…
Is it English? (This is where I bought it)
How old is it?
What is its value? (PS - not for sale!!)

Dean Nickel

That lock could have been made in the last 500 years. It could have been made 10 years ago in India. That key is not for that lock I agree as I would think it was for a cabinet lock by its design. The key might be older than that lock but there are no markings on either that I can see. So without metal tests it will be near impossible to know the age of either I am sorry to say. A manufacture mark or in the case of English locks a king/queen marking would help a great deal on a date.

Paul Prescott

Flat shackles like that usually indicate european on origin. So probably French or German in this case.

Huw Eastwood

Both padlock and the non-fitting key look typical of the modern reproductions still being made in India and the Middle East to me. I’d eat my boots, steel toe caps first, if that’s genuinely old. Value-wise, I wouldnt pay £1 for it sorry.

Paul Prescott

I think this one is right, as above french or german. Modern though (ie post 1919) and probably left outside to rust for a long time.

Basic, nothing special. The key is not connected in any way.

I concur with max on the value though.

ammofo

Thanks for replying to my post.
The general feeling seems to be a ‘thumbs down’, but I’m intrigued by the thought of metal testing. How or where on earth would I start looking into that?

ammofo

Following your Indian tip off, I have trawled the internet for ’fake/repro/Indian/counterfeit/forged padlocks etc" and cannot find one that looks anything remotely like mine. There are no flat shackles, no brass rivets etc. I’m not saying mine’s anything special, I just can’t find any pictures to back the Indian theory up. Maybe mine is the first of 1000s to come!!!
Could anybody find a picture of one (even vaguely) similar and post a link to shut me up once and for all. I hate unsolved mysteries !!

Huw Eastwood

There is no mystery ammofo!
Sadly they’re not sold as fake, repro, counterfeit, or forgeries like you said. Nor are they sold as originating from India, Syria, Iran or wherever, so any such searches are unlikely to reveal anything I’m sorry to say. Makes me cringe how much of that stuff is around from keys and padlocks to so-called ‘ancient artefacts’ and Roman jewellery…