The fretted bit of a key for a Piedmontese Empire style safe

Antique Keys and Locks

I make keys for antique locks, from before 1500 up to the early 1900s. I repair and restore the locks themselves, when their beauty and their value make it worth keeping them alive. And I open safes of that period that have stayed shut: with no key, or with the key but no memory left of how it is used. With the mechanisms of that time, having the key is not always enough.

Cutting the bit of a key: the notches are not straight but follow a helix, so that they go with the key as it turns in the lock.

An antique lock is not just a mechanism that closes a door. It is a challenge thrown out to the world by the person who built it, a contrivance meant to hold out against anyone who tries to open it. Sometimes even the owner forgets the right sequence. Every time I get the chance to open one it is like measuring myself against its maker: working out what he did, how he did it, and finding the way through.

The bit of a key for an eighteenth-century Piedmontese Baroque strongbox
The bit of a key for a Piedmontese Baroque strongbox: the notches are cut following a helix around its axis.

To build a key while the door is still shut I start from what can be seen, the outer profile; I imagine what cannot be seen, feel my way to it, and go along with it, shaping the piece a little at a time. You have to imagine the tricks and the traps, find the hidden buttons and levers that release or block the lock. If you do not know them, having the key is not enough.

The mechanism of a key for a Piedmontese Baroque strongbox. Here too the notches follow a helix around the axis of the key.

That is how the key comes about, piece by piece, built to measure for that one mechanism. Luckily the door is not always shut: if I have the lock in front of me, taken apart, the work has less romance to it but it is easier.

I work on locks and safes running from the fifteenth century and earlier up to the early twentieth — five centuries and more of mechanical ingenuity, each with its own logic and its own tricks. I free up jammed or broken mechanisms, make the missing keys, and, when it is called for, design new locks in the old style, for restoration work or for someone who wants a piece with that history about it.

A nineteenth-century key for a Piedmontese Empire-style safe
The finished key, on the lock it belongs to.

The work is nearly always done at a distance: sometimes I travel, sometimes the lock does. For each case we work out the best way.

If you are missing a key, or want a lock brought back to life, send me a photograph at info@fabbroforgiatore.com and we will talk through the best solution.

Key with a fretwork bit resting on a sixteenth-century strongbox lock
Three keys for an eighteenth-century Piedmontese Baroque safe, above the lock
A key for a nineteenth-century French safe being worked on the bench
A push key in the lock of an early twentieth-century safe
Key for an eighteenth-century Piedmontese Baroque strongbox, finished