Michael Busch 23 Sep 2015
#5Dear fellow collectors,
I have a so-called Horst Stein handcuff for sale. It is the version with anti-slip devices, please see pictures below. The handcuff is fully functional, the springs are very strong, all rubber covers are in place, the size-adjustment device also works smoothly.
In case you are interested please drop me a line at busch-michael(at)
web.de
Best wishes,
Michael
Hi again,
and thank you very much, Mark and Ian, for your interest in my writing.
Considering this old German flexible bow handcuff to be a product of the Horst Stein company was a mistake easy to make. Actually Horst Stein marketed a cuff that had some similarities, the model 609.
Comparing these handcuffs side by side one will notice that both have rubber-covered bycicle-chain style bows, lockcases in the center of the cuff and so-called anti-slip devices. On first glance one would say the one is the old pattern, the other one the new style coming from the same workshop; an assumption that kept unquestioned for quite a while.
The Horst Moabit line of restraints that was marketed by Horst Stein beginning in the early 1950s, was invented by a locksmith with the name Kurt Metk. This person also was the first manufacturer of these items.
The following links will lead to three patents on the name of Kurt Metk. Please use the arrow button in the upper left corner to get to the pictures:
https://depatisnet.dpma.de/DepatisNet/d ... 001769327U
https://depatisnet.dpma.de/DepatisNet/d ... 001673093U
https://depatisnet.dpma.de/DepatisNet/d ... 001652256U
There is a fourth patent issued to Metk in March 1953:
https://depatisnet.dpma.de/DepatisNet/d ... 001652585U
The old German flexible bow handcuff is recognizable in this patent, although the drawing and the real product differ from each other, which is not unusual. Please note that this patent like the other four was granted eight years after the war, it does NOT refer to the cuff's D.R.P.a./D.R.G.M.a. stamping.
Please have a look at the drawings and the written information on these drawings on all four patents and compare them with each other. I have also done that and to me the first three above quoted patents regarding the drawings and the writing look much more modern to me than the fourth one.
I am very sure that the drawings of the fourth patent (showing the old German flexible bow handcuff) were made many years before the drawings of the other patents, although all four patents were granted in about the same time frame.
Kurt Metk used to mark his products with a KM-stamp, here for example on a swing-through Horst Moabit handcuff:
There are two handcuffs in my collection that on first glance look like usual "Deutsche Polizei" cuffs. Here is one of them:
A closer look at the lockcase shows the Kurt Metk KM stamping and the word MOABIT:
My theory is: Kurt Metk worked for the August Schwarz company, he continued to produce Deutsche Polizei style handcuffs under his own name with the old machinery after the August Schwarz had ceased to exist, there he also got hold of the papers of the fourth patent, perhaps he was really the inventor.
This again means that the old German flexible bow handcuff was made by no-one else than the August Schwarz company.
Now please let me know what you think.
Best wishes
Michael
