Description
2024 Gold Medal Winner in Hobbies and Crafts – Independent Book Publishers Awards
Are you interested in collecting antique locks? Do you recreate vintage locks and keys in your workshop? Are you a locksmith interested in the history of your craft, or a blacksmith or machinist wanting to understand the inner workings of traditional lock mechanisms?
Antique Locks and Keys: Their History, Uses and Mechanisms is one of the most comprehensive and visually detailed books ever published on the subject. Featuring over 1,000 high-resolution photographs of European locks and keys—from Roman times through the Industrial Revolution—each example is presented with dates, dimensions, and provenance.
Beyond documentation, the detailed photography and the author’s commentary allow readers to closely examine and understand internal lock mechanisms. Ulf Weissenberger explores how lock designs evolved over centuries, tracing both their technological development and the artistic influences that shaped their form and decoration. The book also includes the author’s perspectives on the restoration of antique locks and keys.
This volume is an essential reference for collectors, art historians, locksmiths, blacksmiths, locksport enthusiasts, and anyone interested in the evolution of one of mankind’s most enduring mechanical devices.
THE AUTHOR
Ulf Weissenberger has spent more than 35 years collecting and restoring antique locks and keys with exceptional attention to detail. In this work, he presents insights spanning nearly 5,000 years of cultural, technological, and artistic history, illustrating how locks and keys have been an integral part of human life across millennia.
REVIEW
“This book is a comprehensive and ground-breaking study. It is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, college, and university library collections, as well as antiques and historic architecture studies.”
— Jack Mason, The Midwest Book Review
SPECIFICATIONS
Hardcover
290 pages
Over 1,000 high-quality color photographs
12¼ × 9¼ inches
YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN
- Locks and Keys throughout the Ages
- Persian Locks: 1500 Years of Iranian Padlocks
- The New Spruce Forge Manual of Locksmithing: A Blacksmith’s Guide to Simple Lock Mechanisms (Revised and Expanded)
