Mark lyons
#1Last night at the West Coast Lock Collectors Association in Hawthorne (L.A.), I gave a small presentation of Houdini handcuffs and had the pleasure to introduce the guest speaker, Scott Klemm.
Scott is a retired history teacher and resides in the Southern California area with his wife.
He acquired an interest in locks and Houdini much in the same way that I did as a kid and while I caught the collecting bug, he did not. He was more interested in taking locks apart to discover how they worked and to research the history of locks and things related to Houdini.
I had heard of him over the years but the opportunity to actually meet him eluded me until this event.
He made a fine power point presentation at the dinner portion of the annual show near Los Angeles but it was almost cancelled due to technical difficulties. Somehow the problem was rectified and it proved to be very interesting even to those in attendance who have no interest in restraints.
The most unknown aspect of collecting ancient restraints is the debate on whether these are designed as animal hobbles for horses or camels of if these were used to secure prisoners or slaves.
The discussion I had with him seems to clear this up. In his research, he believes that if the devise contains a lock and key, it most certainly was used for humans. Animal hobbles don't have locks as they were primarily used to disallow the animal to walk or run away. Locks were time consuming to fabricate and therefore, expensive. Slaves or prisoners obviously need higher security so the expense was justified.
There are records of this style fetters and manacles being used in times B.C. Pompeii was found to use these restraints as well. These were also used as slave restrains right up to the Civil War and beyond.
The video is only 4/5 of the presentation as my iPhone ran out of memory. The book contains much of what is missed from the power point presentation. The audio is a bit muddled but it is not too hard to understand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBaMYo3 ... e=youtu.be It is about 20 minutes in length.
Scott has published other offerings but this seems to be one of the most, if not the most concise reference source on the subject of ancient restraints.
This book was privately printed with only 250 copies. I think half have been sold, so I recommend ordering one from him ASAP. I think you will find this to be well thought out and a wealth of information is contained within.
<img alt="[linked image]" src="http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e347/ ... /klemm.jpg">
If interested, please email him at; [email protected]
for ordering particulars. I do know that the book is $25 but I do not know if postage is covered at that price.
Mark
O--O