Forgot how to dial the combination on that old safe? Think you got the right numbers but the handle is stuck? What safe should you buy? Ask your safe questions here!
Forum rules You are posting this in This Old Safe, a public area of the forum.
Safe manipulation discussion is allowed, but safe drilling or other destructive entry is only allowed in the Advanced - Safes and Safe Locks area.
If you are a guest of the forum and have a safe you need to open, but you do not have the combination, we cannot tell you how or where to drill it.
sorry if this is in the wrong place, but there isn't a section like this dedicated to safes.
I wrote my intro essay, if you care to read it before commenting.
Of course, I'm a victim to movies. And with that of course, myths.
There only myth I'm concerned with. Is sound ever used to manipulate a safe? Like the old fashioned stethoscope.
Second. I'm planning on buying the occasional mystery safe. But before I do, since I have absolutely no interest in drilling....
Can you divulge me in how you determine if the safe can indeed be opened by simply turning the dial? Or could you point me the right detection of a article on this
I manipulate without tools, so no stethoscopes or other electronic devices. So the answer is yes, it's possible to manipulate a safe by just turning the dial. IF the lock works. If relockers haven't fired. IF the bolt works... and of course if there are no additional key locks. I say this because I was called to open a safe that the owner forgot the combo, but had the key. I found the combo. Then the owner said he couldn't find the key...
If you want to read an article about manipulating safes, "safecracking for the computer scientist" by Matt Blaze is a good start. Get ready to spend days to learn the basics.
That said, it's quite uncommon, if not impossible, to find something valuable inside a locked safe that you get at an auction.
There is a section dedicated to Safes and Safe Locks, you just don't have the access to post there since we don't talk with the public or with brand new members about safe cracking in detail. *Posting it nilly willy however gives me more work as now I have to go put it somewhere like I did with your Art Metal safe question, so you will find this question over in This Old Safe.
I will say return the stethoscope and dont sand your finger tips, that's mostly movie lore. Sounds help but I think most people in the game with tell you a very developed sense of feel and ability to visualize what is going on inside the lock will help more than the movie stethoscope routine.
To look at a craigslist or local auction safe that is locked and has no combo and to bring it home and spin the dial and open it without drilling is something that depends on if you are bringing home safes from 1905 or from 1985. (the lock designs varied wildy 100 years ago, but now many safes have the S&G 6730 lock which with enough practice can be manipulated.) You would need like 2 to 20 years manipulation experience to get that good. First to be able to ID safes and safe locks to see if what youre about to bring home can be manipulated and secondly to have the actual skill to manipulate it once you've identified the make and model from experience.
Squelchtone
PS. Femurat beat me to the reply, I havent had my coffee yet!
Sanding finger tips? Haven't heard that one. But aside from the obvious illegal implications I'm not sure how it'll help. I'd think maybe it would help slightly in the short run, but over time would absolutely kill the sensitivity due to callouses.
Trailerpark wrote:Sanding finger tips? Haven't heard that one. But aside from the obvious illegal implications I'm not sure how it'll help. I'd think maybe it would help slightly in the short run, but over time would absolutely kill the sensitivity due to callouses.
It supposedly removes skin and increases the sensitivity. The only time I have ever seen it was in a sniper movie from the late 80s or early 90s.
Trailerpark wrote:Sanding finger tips? Haven't heard that one. But aside from the obvious illegal implications I'm not sure how it'll help. I'd think maybe it would help slightly in the short run, but over time would absolutely kill the sensitivity due to callouses.
what illegal implications? I dont think there's a law that says you must have finger prints on your fingers. If I sand my finger prints down, and commit a crime, they may find it easier to prove I was up to no good, bu I dont think it's illegal to sand them down before the crime.
I should have explained better which averagejoe already knew about, it's some bullsh*t from old movies that safemen/boxmen/safecrackers did to make their fingers "more sensitive" to feeling what was going on in side the lock while turning the dial. I was amazed at how many people over 50 ask me if I sand my finger tips when I tell them I work on safe locks, it must have been something common in some popular movie back in the day. Perhaps some 1930's gangster movie they saw while growing up.
Okay I've tried. And I just can't not respond to that.
How can you deny the obvious illegal implications? You do know that finger prints grow back right? So sanding then off one time doesn't leave you without forever.
Not leaving prints doesn't make the guy without prints anymore a suspect than anyone else. At this day and age you're leaving far more with DNA. Plus how could you say, oh no prints, it must be so and so? I can put gloves on and go to the store. Didn't leave prints, doesn't mean I wasn't there anymore than someone else that was there not leaving prints due to no finger prints.
Sanding your fingerprints would not do away with the natural oils in your skin, which is the reason fingerprints are left behind. Sanding them down would likely not make your fingers perfectly smooth and would result in latent prints. Not to mention the sanded parts of your fingers would yield more surface area of finger for which to contact a surface and leave a big smooth blot of oils behind. Thus, being the guy they find after a crime where the fingerprints are partially latent with a solid, smooth nubbin matching your modified extremeties would certainly put you at the top of the suspect list.
"If you are not currently on a government watch list. You are doing something wrong" - GWiens2001
Trailerpark wrote:Okay I've tried. And I just can't not respond to that.
How can you deny the obvious illegal implications? You do know that finger prints grow back right? So sanding then off one time doesn't leave you without forever.
Not leaving prints doesn't make the guy without prints anymore a suspect than anyone else. At this day and age you're leaving far more with DNA. Plus how could you say, oh no prints, it must be so and so? I can put gloves on and go to the store. Didn't leave prints, doesn't mean I wasn't there anymore than someone else that was there not leaving prints due to no finger prints.
hey man, I think you've taken the ball and ran with it. just stop for a second, I'm not here to start a debate about DNA and forensics and how finger prints work. ALL I said in my original reply was return the stethoscope to the store because it's hollywood nonsense, and in case you also heard about 1930's bad guys sanding down their finger tips to be better safe crackers, ignore that lore as well since it's also hollywood nonsense.
Other than that I'm not sure what exact act you believe to be obviously illegal... safe cracking or sanding one's finger prints down? Again, I don't think there's a law you can show me that says something like "General Laws Chapter 90, Paragraph 15, a citizen may not sand their fingerprints because they get 10 years in jail or a $1000 dollar fine". I'm not a lawyer and I don't think you are either, so perhaps we should not speculate or guess what has "obviously illegal implications" unless we actually know for sure or you feel like explaining what you feel is obviously illegal because I'm not psychic and don't know exactly what you mean from across the internet.
Squelchtone wrote:... I was amazed at how many people over 50 ask me if I sand my finger tips when I tell them I work on safe locks, it must have been something common in some popular movie back in the day. Perhaps some 1930's gangster movie they saw while growing up.
It probably got started with a 1928 movie about Jimmy Valentine. A fictional safe cracker who decided to go straight, but then had to open a safe a person was trapped in, knowing that the detective there would then know who he was and arrest him for it. Same sort of plot device in the 1970's Disney movie "No Deposit, No Return." Jimmy sanded his fingers to make them sensitive, etc. The writer did not know anything about safes, it was just a story.
