Soviet Union era locks

[nataz]

Hola friends!

I'm looking for any information on soviet style locks between 1940 - 1980 ish. Odd request I know, but I'm not familar with many of the US locks made today, let alone something out of the soviet union. Can anyone point me in the direction of a good resource? Eventually I'd really like to purchase some as well - but first I have to figure out what I'm looking for.

I have no idea where to even start with antique locks.

[nataz]

from my limited research, perhaps something along the lines of a zeiss ikon?

[RevDisk]

I have a friend in Israel who has family in Russia. I'll see if I can get any from him.

[greyman]

Hola friends!

I'm looking for any information on soviet style locks between 1940 - 1980 ish. Odd request I know, but I'm not familar with many of the US locks made today, let alone something out of the soviet union. Can anyone point me in the direction of a good resource? Eventually I'd really like to purchase some as well - but first I have to figure out what I'm looking for.

I have no idea where to even start with antique locks.

Are you a spy?

Any resource on this would probably be in Russian. Feel free to post results if you find anything useful. Quite a few people here would probably be interested.

[nataz]

@revdisk

oh man, I missed your reply. If you have any information I'd be very interested. Im sending you a PM!

@grayman

just call me 007 lol. I'd be a pretty poor spy if *this* was my source of soviet technology :-p.

That said, I am a history buff, hence my interest.

[jos weyers]

I'm looking for any information on soviet style locks between 1940 - 1980 ish.

seen the locks, seen the picktools at sneek a couple of years ago:

from http://blackbag.nl/?p=54 :
‘keys to heaven’ STASI opening tools and techniques (Arthur Meister)

In this workshop Arthur will show you some exotic opening tools and
techniques used by the former east German secret service ‘STASI’
(Staatssicherheit). Only locks the former east German government could
open without a trace where allowed back in the days. The internal code
name for the tools and techniques to open locks was ‘himmel Schlüsseln’
(keys to heaven). In this workshop you will learn how to bypass a
trabant car in under 30 seconds.

[greyman]

Is the Arthurmeister course specifically about any Russian locks? I thought it was East German stuff...

[nataz]

STASI were trained and heavily influenced/worked with/proxys for the Soviets in Germany. Something out of that era would actually be perfect!

I googled "Keys to Heaven" and, "himmel Schlüsseln’" and didn't come up with much besides the balckbag page. Anyone know how to get a hold of Arthur Meister? Does he have any publications, or talks on the web? I'm backed by a pretty significant University library that I'll plug these terms into and if need be I can request all sorts of journals, books, w/e.

Anyone know if this http://www.linkedin.com/pub/arthur-meister/6/467/2a5 is his linked in profile?

[mh]

Anyone know if this http://www.linkedin.com/pub/arthur-meister/6/467/2a5 is his linked in profile?

No.

I could forward a message if you like. Also, Arthur prefers German language.

Cheers
mh

[mh]

Ah, and they are called "Himmelsschlüssel". "Himmels" is genitive of "Himmel"=heaven, and "Schlüssel" is singular or plural of key. No 'n'.
Cheers
mh

[mh]

Two more things:

If you search on http://blackbag.nl for "russian", you will find info about a really nice high end lock.

Arthur is currently vice president of SSDeV, so you can contact him here:
http://www.ssdev.org/SSDeV/kontakt.php

Cheers
mh

[nataz]

@mh, thanks for the tips.

of course the downside of google is that even with the correct spelling most of my hits are now in German -which i can't read :-p. Mostly I've been getting pics of yellow flowers, no idea why, but I did find this http://blog.tresoroeffnung.de/2009/10/0 ... comb-pick/ which talked about using a comb pick and had some translations in english (there was also a nice little video). Note at the bottom of the page they actually mention SSDeV.

I'll shoot Mr. Meister a message via SSDev about my interest and what I'm looking for, but if you want to pass on a heads up to him as well I'd appreciate it. I know you said he prefers German, does he speak english? Would it be better if I just went through you instead?

as for searching blackbag about Russian locks, I'm one step ahead. I found that back in December, it was actually really cool. I have bunch of friends that speak Russian, and we went through some of the links that angry russian guy was posting in the forum and they seemed legit. Did anything ever come of that?

One last thing. I have a few contacts that are going to be traveling through Russia/fmr. soviet block countries over the summer. They are going to keep an eye out for me. Hopefully I'll be able to get them some more information before they leave. If anyone else is interested, let me know.

Thanks again for everyone's help

[mh]

yes there are flowers with that name, too...

Arthur's last name is not Meister, that's just a nickname he chose because of the fact that he sometimes wins in some competitions

The tresoroeffnung.de blog is hosted by Oli D., an expert on safe locks and of course also member of SSDeV.

[nataz]

It was an interesting blog, I hope he keeps it up. I like that he took the time to write in english as well .

I figured as much on the flowers.

Lol at me thinking it was his last name.