Tom Gross has passed away

Sad to inform the handcuff community that Mr Tom Gross , handcuff collector and author of the book 'Manacles of the world" has passed away.

I will post more details when I know more.

Ian McColl

Thanks for the information Ian.

I never met Tom but have talked with him several times.  He was always helpful and we have lost another of the "Old Timers".

Ron

Sad to hear of this. I have Tom's Book, Manacles of the World. We have lost one of our friends who shared a lot of knowledge with us. R.I.P., Mr. Gross.
-Richard Knip-

Ian

Thanks for passing this information along to us, I tried many times to get in touch with him but was never able to. We lost a friend to the collecting community and a lot of knowledge with his passing.

Spencer

That is sad news. Thanks Ian for letting us know.
Joe

Thanks, Ian. I really liked Tom.

Brad


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Very sad news that came to me through Ian this morning.

I met Tom a few times, both at the conventions in California but also at the conventions here in Europe.
I can’t say I knew Tom very well as he was a man of privacy, but he was always very calm,  nice and helpful. The last time we met, was at the European Convention in Germany in 2014.

A few months ago, I sent him emails but I unfortunately never heard back from him. It’s a great loss for the community to lose another long time fellow collector.

I have attached a few photos of Tom from different conventions.

Rest in peace!
Lars

Update from Tom's friend. .  . . Tom passed on Sunday January 5, 2020. He lived in America in the state of Oregon. In Tom’s memoir he stated if there was one thing he would tell people it would be to travel. Tom had a passion for traveling and visited many parts of the world sharing life with his friends. 

I will share a story about Tom and the day I met him.

I was going to meet a friend at the Magic Castle and mailed him a Walkie Talkie so we could hook up since he was setting up his handcuff booth at the Pomona Gun Show.  I think cell phones were still a luxury item then.
My friend was sharing a room with Tom at a nearby hotel.
My friend got backed up and could not make it to the Magic Castle and never even tried to get hold of me on the Walkie Talkie.  So I am hanging out in the lobby waiting for him to show up.
I hear some guys walk in and the word "handcuffs" is mentioned.
I asked them if they knew my friend and they affirmed that they are meeting him shortly.  It was Tom and his friends so I was able to tag along with them for the night and we had a great time except for the fact my friend never did show up.  Had I arrived at the Castle a minute later than Tom did, I would have been all confused and by myself.  I don't even know if I would have stayed all that long.  Grateful that we were able to have a very nice time seeing some magic and having a nice dinner together.

Later that night, my friend, Tom and I met up at the hotel room and learned that there were no available rooms for me so they invited my to sleep on the floor with some blankets as a cushion.  I was OK with that.  I can sleep anywhere.
We put all of our cuffs up on the window sill showing off our prizes and cuffs for sale.  We spent all night talking handcuffs.
It started to get cold and we discovered that the heater under the window was not working so we called the desk and asked them to send a maintenance guy to fix it so we could finally go to sleep.

This maintenance guy comes up and knocks on the door as we tried to explain the problem to him.  He goes over to the TV and starts adjusting it.  He was told that the TV was the broken item by the desk clerk.  We tried to tell him to forget about the TV...it was the heater that wasn't working
We pointed towards the heater again and as he does not speak English very well, we kept pointing.

He sees all the handcuffs and then looks at each of us like we were into bondage and things and was afraid that he was being invited to partake in some after hours pleasure.
I never seen anyone run so fast.

Later that day at the gun show, Tom came across a nice McKenzie for $2,000.  At the end of the day, he decided he didn't want it anymore so I was happy to buy it from him....with a slight profit.  I still have it and as I am still sworn to secrecy, I can't mention any details but it was featured on a popular TV show a few years later.

Sorry to hear about him


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