Old Yale Padlock Please ID

[Michelin Man]

Picked up an old Yale padlock from the markets without a key. For the price of a cheeseburger. Not really into old locks but for the price, I couldn't say no.

I raked it open pretty easily and was surprised it was fairly shiny and clean on the 'inside'.

It has "PCC" stamped on one side, no idea what it was used for.

Does anyone know what keyway it is? Might have been a restricted keyway. I might try and impression this lock. I had a look through the silca key catalog but couldn't find it, there must be a bigger catalog somewhere.

Here are a few pics.

[GWiens2001]

Don't know what kind that is, but have not seen one with the chain mount as a cast part of the lock body like that. Very interesting.

As for the keyway, the Kaba-Ilco online catalog may be more useful.

Keep us informed!

Gordon

[jeffmoss26]

That does look restricted to me. Being in Australia and not a US lock, it could be a totally different keyway from what we have.

[Michelin Man]

Thanks Gordon! That's what I was looking for. Forgot all about Ilco.

I still couldn't find a perfect match. Closest I found is the 998FD which is a reverse profile, and one of the spots is not offset. Then again they all start looking the same after all those pages haha.

The chain holder seems to have been added on, I assume not by Yale but you can see marks where they have hit it with a grinder.

I'm not sure if this was used in Australia as most of the time, Lockwoods are used for commercial and government stuff.

[jeffmoss26]

Take a look here - a friend on another forum saw this post and sent it to me - page 70 of Silca catalog #108

[Michelin Man]

Mate, your a legend! Cheers, Cheers to your mate as well.

Probably would of helped if I looked beyond the Yale keyways as it's a yale but what do you know haha,

[jeffmoss26]

Here is some more information from a gentleman who worked for Yale at one time:
"The registration groove matches the G series style so I doubt the reverse VYZ could fit. What many may not be aware of is that Yale can and does, at least when I was in charge at the factory, broach plugs that will accept certain Multi-section keys only. There are also two other multiplex families that are compatible with the G family that are known as the L and P families.

From looking at the keyway it appears that it may have been broached to accept only the GV key or its equivalent in the L family, LV. It is hard to tell the difference between G and L and P family keyways as the register grooves are only different by .015" on one side.
BBE. "

[peterwn]

A few guesses here. PCC could stand for 'Prospect County Council' which is a confusing name as it was an electricity utility covering west of
Sydney through the Blue Mountains to the Tablelands, but there could be other entities abbreviated PCC in Australia.
The shackle is stamped 'Made in England' - Yale supplied the Australian and New Zealand market mostly from England.
English Yale had different multiplex families from USA Yale - the ones I know of are:
JW (two lower grooves equal size and 4 upper 'pips' W X Y Z giving 6 profiles) presumably referenced JW-AB for example.
NA (lower grooves opposite JW and 6 upper 'pips' A B C D E F giving 15 profiles)
YN (unequal lower grooves and 6 upper pips A-F)
SC (small diameter cylinder 4-6 pin 4 upper pips A-D)
English Yale used these profiles for 'restricted' keyways as well as masterkeying and claimed in their catalogue they did not sell blanks to anyone,
but did provide blanks to some New Zealand and other foreign locksmiths and wholesalers otherwise obtaining extra keys would have been quite unwieldy.
The cylinders were usually 6 pin but 5 pin was also used for cabinet type locks with full size cylinders and for nightlatch type cylinders
used for mortice latches where length was at a premium (the set screws were in a horizontal line with the plug rather than the
centre of the cylinder as the holding screws passed through the lock case).

I think the SC profiles were also used on Rolls Royces.

The illustrated padlock seems to be one of the YN profiles. The number 9853 would be the system number and
A2 the change key reference. Yale did not stamp profile references on plugs or supplied keys (but stamped the two profile letters
on blanks supplied to the trade).

Sonnette (a British after market blank firm) for a while supplied JW and NA master sections only under designations 40 and 40R.
but were leaned on to desist (I do not know the politics at play here). In my opinion anyone who sells master section blanks only
or cuts change keys on master section blanks should be taken out and shot - they are a security hazard. There are currently blank
suppliers (Google 'Yale yn blanks' for example) and and I have seen 4 pin SC blanks in a catalogue under 'Rolls Royce'.

The British call these 'security' keys which seems to be a corruption of 'Surety' keys as the world's first multiplex masterkey
system was installed in the Surety Building in New York in the 1890's using the Yale GA, GB etc series (source - a posting by
Billy Edwards on the alt.locksmithing group years ago).

[peterwn]

I have hunted out a local NZ locksmith supply catalogue from 1967 and it has a page with diagrams of British Yale
multiplex sections. This padlock almost certainly is a YN-BC section.

[Michelin Man]

Thanks for the replies Jeff and Peter!

After quite a few pages I was finally able to find a 'drawing' of the Yale YN BC keyway it looks like everything matches except one ward. But if it is a multi-broach as you say it probably fits. The BKS BK3-1 also still looks like a promising key to try.

Getting a hold of these keys easily or on the cheap is probably what will stop be from bothering with this lock.