Tool Talk
What's-It Forum => What's-It Forum => Topic started by: superzstuff on January 28, 2016, 03:42:27 PM
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Along with my tools and hardware collection, I have thousands of keys. from old skeleton to everything else, but none like these. These strangely cut keys are from American Lock Manufacturing company in Cazenovia New York. Does anyone know what they might unlock?
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would they be considered push keys?.,not a clue on application.
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Apparently goes to a lock like this https://www.antiquesnavigator.com/index.php?s=Antique+Cazenovia&c=&submit=Submit&main_page=documents&content=search (https://www.antiquesnavigator.com/index.php?s=Antique+Cazenovia&c=&submit=Submit&main_page=documents&content=search)
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Hello, Superzstuff. Very cool looking keys. I am about 20-25 miles west of Cazenovia , in Sunny Syracuse , NY. Regards, Lou
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Wow, wish I had the lock to go with these keys. I guess the hunt is on. Don't know if I would spend $178 for one though!
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Go another 15 minutes west of Lou in Syracuse to Jordan where I live. I have never heard of a lock company in the Central New York area, although I have seen many American padlocks.
Wikipedia mentions: "The earliest record of the wafer tumbler lock in the United States is the patent in 1868 by Philo Felter. Manufactured in Cazenovia, New York, it used a flat double-bitted key."
From this rootsweb page; http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nymadiso/1899-14.htm (http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nymadiso/1899-14.htm)
The American Lock Manufacturing Company, incorporated in 1875, with a capital of $25,000, purchased the business in that year of the American Lock Company, which had for several years manufactured a lock of new design in a machine shop near the Albany street bridge. In the same year a building occupied by Stephen Chaphe as a machine shop was purchased by the new company and fitted up for their business. In April, 1878, the business was sold to the Yale Lock Company and removed to Stamford, Conn.
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I went to main street in Cazenovia on Google Earth and found this place. Does this mean something?
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Good investigatin' Superzstuff! That is probably the location of the machine shop but I am not finding anything to confirm it. The shop is a lady's consignment shop. The location is a block away from the Chittenango Creek bridge (" a machine shop near the Albany St bridge") and it is Albany Street or Route 20 as we call it locally.
Al