Lithgow Small Arms

I received this picture from a lady in Australia. She asked me to identify the cuff. It appears to be an early version of the Lithgow Small Arms copy of the Peerless handcuff. It is the only one that I have seen with the long single link. Such a link was also a feature of the first Peerless cuffs.

Ian. Do you know when the first Lithgow cuffs were made?

Joe

Hi Joe, I would like to have known the answer to that straight of the top of my head but alas I didn't. I did a search under Lithgow - small- amrs- factory and came up with several sites.

One in partuclar mentions handcuff which were made in the years preceeding the second world war. I would suspect that these were the Peerless model two copies as I have not seen any darbies with S.A.F. one them.

As some officers still carry this model today, I will look around and see if I can spot a single link pair and the more common chain version.

Ian

Ian

My thought was that if they copied the long single link they might have started quite early, when Peerless was still using the single link at well.

I don't know when exactly Peerless switched to the mutiple link, but I think it was just a few years after the 1912 introduction or the Peerless cuff.

Or it maybe that they were simply licensed by Peerless to copy their first model and thus they copied the long link many years after Peerless stopped using it.

Joe

Hi Joe, I would like to have known the answer to that straight of the top of my head but alas I didn't. I did a search under Lithgow - small- amrs- factory and came up with several sites.

One in partuclar mentions handcuff which were made in the years preceeding the second world war. I would suspect that these were the Peerless model two copies as I have not seen any darbies with S.A.F. one them.

As some officers still carry this model today, I will look around and see if I can spot a single link pair and the more common chain version.

Ian

Hi I just wrote to the factory where they have a nice museum. The below is from their website. The website is dated 1998. :

The museum houses one of Australia's most comprehensive collections of machine guns, rifles, pistols and related items from around the world. Unique to this museum are Australian designed experimental, prototype and pre-production weapons.

On display are numerous non-military items manufactured at the well known Lithgow Small Arms Factory during its 80 years of precision engineering, including sewing machines, sheep shearing handsets, hand cuffs and many other commercial items.

A rare collection of photographs depict the early production sections in the Small Arms Factory.

Other photographs and memorabilia reveal the involvement of factory employees in the social, sporting and cultural events of the city since 1912.

Enquiries Ph: +61 (02) 6351 4452


mark
"Kuffs"
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