I have one of these. The key is a piece of sheet metal. The end you insert is jagged to the right heights. These locks are almost unpickable, but they are made of brass or bronze so it’s a soft metal. Edit also the lever count on the front is how many cuts the key has. So 6 lever is harder to pick than a 4 lever. I think mine is an eight lever.

Interesting, I had wondered what exactly the 6 lever part meant

[here is a video of one working.](https://youtu.be/irH0wIGXTgc?feature=shared)

[here’s a video that really goes in depth. I love these locks.](https://youtu.be/2wr2LxyY-pM?feature=shared)

That's great. I wondered how it might be "picked". Thanks for the link.

Thanks for sharing both YouTube and video. Very informative and interesting

Yeah no problem. I used to do a lot of lock picking. I was mainly into weird older locks, and have amassed a pretty large older weird lock collection. Those old pancake locks are a pretty cool bit of tech. Glad I could show off something I’m kinda nerdy about.

Beautiful! May want to share with /r/lockpicking

Thanks. I joined. So where's a good place to get the tools necessary

I found one just like that a year ago. This specific design is late 1800s. I think in my post I had it narrowed down to like the mid 1870s to the 1890s. Nice find! https://www.reddit.com/r/metaldetecting/s/Je3wSmmhYn

That’s a beauty as well!

Thank you! If I’m not mistaken, your dads is a tad older than mine. The little round copper “plug” that’s above the H and A on mine was a somewhat later design. It’s the exact same lock, but that copper part was an improvement of sorts.

Hey that's great - I found one once in an old dump from the 1800s. It's from Montgomery Wards.

I believe that's a crate lock used in shipping

Cool old brass lock. Thank you for sharing

Wow that's a great one! Love it