Hello fellow collectors!
Amazing two auctions for this rare and mysterious model within 10 days. I am really wondering, if even more pieces are coming up now.
So far I do not know many collectors who own this model in fact just me, Michael Busch, one that is/was in the Stan Willis collection and a handcuff plus a combination (the second known combo besides mine please see below), which are in the possession of a German collector, who does not participate in the online community.
Who else has a piece of this model in his collection?
Best regards,
Guenter
I seem to recall that we have had at least part of this discussion before, because I remember expressing the opinion that these "So-Called Russian Prison Handcuffs" or "Heavy German Handcuffs" could never have been World War II production, simply because of the huge amount of metal needed (wasted!) in their manufacture. In fact, I consider that they significantly predate World War II, just based on the design. My guess would be '20s; they just have a kind of angular Art Deco look to them.
There is no one whose opinion I respect more than Michael's, but I have come to believe that these handcuffs are probably German, for the reason stated by others, that their quality is too good to be Russian. Having said that, when this discussion began I got out my set of what I'll call here the "Big Monster Handcuffs" and just began looking at them. The quality of these handcuffs is NOT up to the standards of August Schwarz or other popular German brands. But this is explainable without coming to the conclusion that they are Russian. Perhaps the Big Monster Handcuffs were made by a small company, or just an individual inventor in the eastern part of Germany (more about this later). Each set might have been hand-made, because the company was just starting up. The mass manufacturing techniques of the already established companies could not be used. And, because there were superior products available, the Big Monster Handcuffs just never became popular. This would go a long way toward explaining their scarcity today.
Perhaps the Big Monster Handcuffs were just a small product made as a sideline by a company usually making other products. As an example, I could not begin to count the number of .22 rifles I have seen, over the years, made by oddball companies, with names like "Acme Bicycle Company". Any metal-working shop, when business was slow, could use its machines to churn out other products for which there was a demand at the moment, such as a simple .22 rifle. Or a batch of Big Monster Handcuffs. It's conceivable, considering the small number of these cuffs now known to exist, that only one order was ever produced.
As an offshoot of this scenario, consider the part played by personal influence in governmental procurement. Let's pick a city in eastern Germany; Brandenburg for the sake of convenience. Perhaps there was a small metalworking shop in that city, owned by the brother-in-law of the mayor. When the mayor needed to purchase handcuffs for his police department, he gave the contract to his relative. And the brother-in-law had to come up with a design which was not an obvious rip-off of the product of another company.
As a prelude to further discussion, and just as a technical matter, are we absolutely certain that the internal mechanism of the Big Monster Handcuffs is identical to the mechanisms of the East German cuffs? Michael, have you compared X-rays? Not that they need to be absolutely identical. But, for the moment and for the purposes of this discussion, let's assume that they are.
I believe that Michael Busch (please correct me if I'm wrong, Michael) has conclusively established that all handcuffs from the GDR era were made in the prison at Brandenburg, by convict labor. It may always remain a mystery as to how the decision was made, in the East German bureaucracy, to put the convicts to work making handcuffs. But, in one way or another, that decision was made. The next question would have been, "Well, what kind of handcuffs will we have them make?"
What happened next might also always remain murky. Maybe some bureaucrat noticed that the assets of a handcuff manufacturer located in the eastern sector of Germany (the former manufacture of the Big Monster Handcuffs) had been seized by the state, and all the dies and molds and presses were available to be moved to the prison. That would be an explanation of the internal parts being absolutely identical. (It would also have a bearing on the fact, as Guenter pointed out, that most extant examples of this model can be traced to that part of Germany which became the GDR.) Or maybe some bureaucrat happened to have a set of the Big Monster Handcuffs and tossed them on a table and said, "Let's copy these, but let's redesign the lock case so that they aren't so heavy and klunky." And somebody else said, "Let's try making them out of aluminum." I'm sure, among the prison population, there was plenty of talent available to redesign such lock case and come up with the GDR models of handcuffs.
There is obviously a lot of conjecture in the foregoing, but I believe that some of the issues raised might explain how the GDR handcuffs could have evolved from the Big Monster Handcuffs, and without any involvement by Russia.
