Only slightly relevant, an episode of Penn & Teller’s “Fool Us” had an escape artist chained then sealed into a barrel of wine. She managed to get out of the chains (out of view), then “picked” a large padlock holding the lid onto the barrel. Whew! She escaped.
It looked to me like the chain’s padlock was a Master #21 which can easily be modified for easy escape. For example, the lock cylinder can be completely removed, or merely de-pinned.
The outer lock looked like an American 700 which can be similarly modified. She used a single pick which was inserted, wiggled around, and twisted. But first, she accidentally dropped the pick back into the barrel and had to find it. In reality she probably had a few dozen picks scattered around the barrel’s bottom.
I’m not trying to knock the escape artist. I just wanted to point out that some padlocks are easy to modify, and Houdini may have found just the right ones for his purpose. If not, a little more effort in a shop will allow almost any padlock to be de-fanged.
