As far as I know, I'm working for free, but it's been fun to work on so far, and I have to admit I'll be sad to send
these back to the owner. They are in excellent working condition with only very minimal surface rust in a few places.
They are Bean-Cobb manacles, patented in 1899, and featured a new special locking mechanism that allowed the carrier
to keep them in the closed position without them locking. When the need arose, you can simply press the button on the
cheek of the cuff to release the ratcheting plates inside, causing them to lock when closed. There's not double-lock
feature on them however. I don't know specifically when production of these ceased, but I know they were in service
during the early 1900's, and I can't imagine them being any younger than 80 years old.
Here's a close up of the keyhole and ratchet release button. It's a simple warded lock design, but what made it interesting
to me was that there are two spring loaded ratchet plates in the mechanism instead of just one. While picking it, I had to
pick each one separately to open them. It was easy enough to do ones I figured it out, but it slowed me down and was
quite frustrating at first.
Here are the keys I made by hand. I used some MasterLock steel keys from a simple warded padlock I had sitting around
as the key blank, and my trusty vac-vice and some needle files to shape them. The first attempt at the key (on the left)
is more crude. it functions to open the lock but you have to find the right place in the keyway to turn them. The second
key, I am pleased to say, works perfectly. like the original key would have.