Hello All. New guy here, looking for some lock advice.

Nitrus

Hello All,

 New guy here. Let me say that I have spent a bit of time searching and I love this site.

With that out of the way I wanted to ask for some assistance from the lock experts. I recently acquired a few locks of various visual age. I am not very good with aging locks, as my involvement and experience is more on the smithing/picking side and would be very appreciative if anyone could give me any information about this portion of my collection.

Again, any information would be greatly appreciated as I am concerned about “cleaning” these guys up, should they be “antique” or valuable for more than just picking practice.

So thank you very much in advance, and I hope that I may be able to contribute in the future.

Take care all.

Dean Nickel

I would say on the bottom row the 3rd and 4th from the right maybe a bit more rare then the rest on the bottom row. The top row is mostly rare as far as I know. BUT I am NOT a padlock collector. I just have not seen those two on the bottom row before and the top row I know other than Yale companies that made those have not been around in about 30+ years.

oldbiscuit

Nitrus,The top row with the exception of the Reese are collectable but not really high priced. Most of the locks on the bottom row make good practice picking locks, but realize that inexperienced pickers can ruin the pins in a lock even if they get them to open.So if you have a lot of old junk locks without keys and you want the practice,go for it. As far as cleaning the four on top, I would shy away from removing any of the origional patina as most collectors want that left on. Mark:o:

Nitrus

Hey,

    Thanks very much for that information guys. I feel better now about performing maintenance on them. I will reserve a few aside that you, both, mentioned were relatively rare.

    Any chance you might know of a catalog or a book where I could search these locks to find model numbers or etc.  I have tried the local and participating library but only found a small "drug store" type book with a few random locks by photo. I'd love to create an excel sheet cataloging all these guys.

If anyone knows of a good source for getting that kind of information, please let me know.

Thanks again for that information guys. 🙁happy):

P.S. Should I have started a new thread for this, or is this acceptable, so I know in the future?

Nitrus

Nitrus wrote
Any chance you might know of a catalog or a book where I could search these locks to find model numbers or etc.

JFYI, I did read the sticky regarding the suggested books. Checking to see if there are any updated/additional reading suggestions.

Thanks again.

[unknown]

Brian Denyer

Old Lock Company catalogs are a source of both line illustrations and photo’s.
The only drawbacks are that alot of collectors drive the selling prices way, way
up for some of the catalogs.

Brian………………………………………