Can anyone identify or give any info on where a safety deposit box key may have come from? Also, anyone know how I cam post a pic of said key?
To post a picture you’ll need to upload it to somewhere else on the Web and post a link here. Your ISP may storage space that’s available to you, or you can use something like Imgur.com to host it.
You can’t post pictures here. You can upload it to a photo hosting site (imgur/photobucket etc) and post a link here. As for where it came from, if there’s know information on the key itself, the first thing I’d do is bring it to my bank and ask them. If it’s not theirs they, having seen more keys than me, may have some idea as to what bank it belongs to or some way to look it up.
6https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1488695894484678&id=100000328443287
Can anyone provide any info on where the box is that matches this key?
Bad link. I can’t see the picture. The page displays this:
The page you requested cannot be displayed right now. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may be broken or expired, or you may not have permission to view this page.
If the situation is something like “one of my relatives passed away and left safe deposit box keys”, then:
Speaking as a Certified Master Locksmith…
<nitpick> It’s called a safe deposit box key. It has nothing to do with safety. It’s a box, which is inside a safe (or a vault), where you deposit things. Safe deposit box key. The locksmith industry is virtually unanimous in this. Only non-locksmiths will tell you otherwise. </nitpick>
I can’t open your photo, but I don’t think it matters. Trying to identify which safe or vault a particular key goes to simply by looking at the key is about as hopeless as finding a 10mm bolt lying in the road and trying to guess which truck it fell off of.
Consider the following. Residential locks are made by dozens of different companies and use dozens of different keyways, which require specific key blanks. For example, the two most popular key blanks are the SC1 and the KW1. There are approximately 75,000 different ways to cut an SC1 blank and 6,000 different ways to cut a KW1 blank. Suppose you find a KW1 key lying in a drawer and you wonder which house it goes to. Suppose there is no label or fob attached to it, just a plain key that says “KW1” on it. Maybe this key goes to the house in which you found it, or the house next door, or across the street. The only way to know is to walk over and try it in the lock. Be prepared to be yelled at by angry neighbors who might not want you trying to unlock their door. If it doesn’t fit any house up and down the street, there are literally millions of houses it might fit. It is essentially hopeless for you to try to find the right house. In fact, you have a better chance of just randomly finding another house that by sheer luck has the exact same key but it’s not the right house yet your key works there anyway (this is called “key interchange”). There are only 6,000 KW1 keys, so it’s just a matter of how many locks you try until you get lucky. Each Kwikset lock has 1 chance in 6,000 that you’ve got the perfect key, plus another 31 chances out of 6,000 that you have a key which is not quite perfect for that lock but close enough that it’ll work if you wiggle it. The only thing you do know is that this KW1 key won’t fit a Schlage lock or a Medeco lock or a Corbin-Russwin lock. Other than that, you have no idea what color the house is, which city it’s in, or even whether it’s a house or an apartment.
Now consider a safe deposit box key. If it’s a Sargent & Greenleaf key, then you know it fits a Sargent & Greenleaf lock. That’s all you know. You have no idea which brand of safe (or vault) said lock is installed in. You have no idea if it’s a privately owned safe or a bank which rents out boxes in their vault. If it is in a bank, you have no idea what city the bank is in, let alone which bank. Now pile on top of this the fact that the banks consider it a matter of ethics that they should protect the privacy of their clients and they absolutely will NOT let you walk into their vault and start sticking the key into random locks.
But wait, there’s more. Most safe deposit boxes require two keys to operate: a guard key and a renter’s key. Before you even put your key into the lock, you must #1 Convince the bank to let you into their vault, #2 Tell them exactly which box is yours, #3 Convince the guard to put the guard key into that particular lock. Only after that key is turned can you insert your key and see if it turns the lock.
Now for the glimmer of hope. When someone dies, the executor of the will can call the bank and arrange to get access to the box on behalf of the deceased. They will insist on seeing papers. But this assumes you already know which bank it’s at. I suppose you could call all the banks in town and explain the situation. Chances are they would each insist that you come down in person and show them your papers before they would even confirm or deny that the deceased ever had an account at their bank at all.
But it’s more likely that the key doesn’t go to any box in any vault in town. It may go to a lock that no longer exists in a box that has been rented out to someone else. It may go to a lock which isn’t even in a bank at all. Heck, for all we know, that key might be a souvenir from 30 years ago when the deceased was dating the assistant manager at a locksmith shop and this key came out of their recycle bin.
Must…resist…obvious…Police Squad!…joke.
This thread is food for thought.
Years ago we closed out our safe deposit box. (A merger meant we weren’t getting it free anymore and it was nearly unused.)
We couldn’t find both keys so we only returned one. But much later I found it. I’m not sure what I did with it. But I guess if I do come across it again it’s best to throw it out since we don’t want the kids to be in the position of the OP some day.
Our keys, btw, were simple flat pieces. No slots or anything. The box number was stamped on it. Very basic piece of metal with nothing identifying on it. Not even clear that it’s a key of any import at all. Good luck trying to find out which bank it went with.
If you found the key in the home or belongings of a deceased family member, then it might be a mystery worth pursuing. But only if you are, or have permission from the executor.
If found in any other way, might as well forget it. The odds that the owner would want the key would be near zero, and the odds you could access the contents of the box, really zero.