Locks
are everywhere: from our entrance door to our cupboard, from our car to our travel suitcase, from
our safe to our diary and post box. We keep doors locked to feel safe.
For each lock we usually have a different key, some kept hidden, locked in secret vaults, some
kept on a key ring among other keys we use in our daily life. Locking doors is what we do to keep
intruders away. We are locking safes to keep valuables out of the reach of thieves, although lock
picking is the art of opening deadbolts without a key, an art mastered by the thieves as well as
by the locksmiths. If the keys are easy to copy or the locks and padlocks easy to pick our safety
feeling vanishes into thin air. To preserve this feeling we need to acquire sophisticated locksets.
The first lock ever known to man, over 4000 years old was discovered in Egypt and is a precursor
of the contemporary pin-tumbler locks. Yet Romans were the first to make metal locks and keys,
based on the Egyptian model though. Even Yale invented a cylinder lock taking as a model an early
Egyptian lockset. Locks changed in time and today, the new generation of deadbolts and padlocks
has state-of-the-art features determined by technological advances in the locking industry. Names
like Yale and Soref from the Master Lock Company transformed the locking industry. And let's not
forget Sargent whose locking mechanism is the forerunner of the contemporary locking mechanisms
used for locking bank vaults; and Joseph Bramah who created a lock that couldn't be picked for
over 60 years.
The keyless locks were actually invented in the 17th century and improved in time. Today, when we
think about a keyless lock or deadbolt we think about electronic locking devices with digitally
programmable codes. And the locking technology continues to evolve.