Cool Coin Bank

[GWiens2001]

A childhood friend of my wife told her she had a handmade coin bank, but lost the key years ago. She said local locksmiths could not help her. My wife told her to send it down when her parents came down for the summer. It has now arrived.





New(er) post office box door/lock. It is 35 years old, and was a post office door from when they stopped making combination locks, but had not redesigned the door without the combination lock letters.



Reverse Yale keyway, and I had a few five pin blanks.



Well, needed to figure out how many pins, so I stuck a flashlight in front, shining light through the window, and looked into the keyway.





OK, try the blank.



Made in 1980



And no pins in the core.



So, without much difficulty, now the bank is once again functional. It will go back to its owner soon.

Gordon

[YouLuckyFox]

Awesome find, Gordon. Thanks for sharing!

[Lunna200]

So she could have just gotten a blanks and opened it. Weird that there weren´t any pins in it.

[somenewguy]

Or could have stuck anything in the lock and turned it, but it wouldn't occur to people who don't know locks...

[GWiens2001]

Plus blanks for a reverse Yale Y1 keyway are fairly uncommon here in the United States. The main use for that keyway is for mail boxes inside the post office. So trying to get one may raise eyebrows with the locksmiths who carry them.

Gordon

[DangerDane]

It looks very cool. Going to stick some pins in it and "rekey" it or?

[nite0wl]

Very cool. The reverse Y1s are very hard to find in the USA because, as another poster mentioned, they are used primarily for Post Office boxes and most locksmiths either don't stock them or are extremely leery of copying them.

Very nice work though.