I heard someone on the internet suggest that metalworking in the 1900s probably couldn’t support cheap and reliable locksmithing. Is this true? I heard that rich people probably had good door locks much earlier, as in hundreds of years earlier, so surely locks were commonplace during the 1900s to 1930s?
Not really, most town houses relied on wooden bars dropped in a slot back then.
dude_robert:
I heard someone on the internet suggest that metalworking in the 1900s probably couldn’t support cheap and reliable locksmithing. Is this true? I heard that rich people probably had good door locks much earlier, as in hundreds of years earlier, so surely locks were commonplace during the 1900s to 1930s?
Yes, locks were commonplace in the early 1900’s.
bob_2
June 29, 2017, 1:54pm
4
Cheap no. Reliable yes. They do go back a long time though:
he oldest preserved door locks we have ever found belong to the ancient Egyptians and date back to at least 2000 B.C. It’s believed, but not proven, that they existed even earlier than that.
The first Egyptian lock comprised a wooden bolt securing a door, with a slot with several holes on its upper surface. A device attached to the door contained wooden pins which would drop into the holes and secure the bolt. The key, also wooden, was a large toothbrush–shaped affair, whose ‘bristles’ were actually pegs that matched the holes and pins in the lock. To open the door, it would be inserted into the keyhole located below the pins and lifted, raising the pins and allowing the bolt to be slid out.
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The Romans created new types of door locks and developed the idea of the Egyptian lock, substituting iron for the wooden lock and often bronze for the key. Keys were no longer too big to lose (or lift), indeed some Roman keys were small enough to wear on a finger.
Oldest Door Lock Comes From Ancient Egypt - MessageToEagle.com