Cuff of the Day for April 2

The Cuff of the Day for April 2.  Please post a picture of one of your favorite cuffs.
Just a cuff that you like, it does not need to be rare.

My Cuff of the Day is a  T. Froggatt handcuff.  What makes it special?  Froggatt handcuffs are rather common.
Yes, Froggatt handcuffs are common, but T. Froggatt handcuffs are not.     The Froggatt handcuff company was
founded by William Froggatt in the 1820s.  He had a son Thomas Elias Froggatt, who founded his own handcuff company in the
1860s.   When William died in 1874, the two companies were combined under Thomas's leadership.  We know this
because of research conducted by the late Mick Hanzlik, master locksmith and Houdini historian.   Mick interviewed
Thomas's great grand-daughter Zeena.  She provided  Mick with a copy a letter produced by Thomas Froggatt at the time of
William Froggatt's death.

I have seen three examples of T. Froggatt cuffs.  The were all labeled Birmingham, unlike Froggatt cuffs that do not list the city.  

My entry for the April 2 Collection is a rather rare handcuff from a company that states they are "Producers of the Unusual".
Many handcuff manufacturers are producers of unrelated items such as guns, bed frames and roller skates.
This one is possibly unique in that they made automobile bodies.

The Farnum & Nelson Company of Boston had a line of handcuffs almost identical to the Walden Tool Company marked cuffs.  The difference being that the swivels between the 2 companies versions are very different. I believe that one company manufactured these and the other private labeled theirs.  Similar to the Peerless/Smith and Wesson association.
The question is;  Who was the actual maker?
I wish I knew.

http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/f/farnham ... nelson.htm

 Inspired by Joe's Froggatt's.... Continuing with Houdini and his imitators   Houdini never claimed to be the originator of handcuff tricks. Houdini was quoted as saying   “Returning  to the subject of my career I asset here with all positveness  (a Houdini  word) I can command that I’m the originator  of "The Challenge Handcuff Act" in which the artists inviting any person in the audience to summit a handcuff of his own from which the performer must release himself and it is proper that I should add at this point that I don’t claim to have conceived and originated the simple handcuff  trick every novice in this line knows that it has been done for many years or so far back as the lawyers say that memory runneth not to the contrary".As Houdini fame grew as the Handcuff King so did his imitators…Imitators where popping  up all over the world using names such as Boudini, Howdenne, Nordini and Oudini and the list goes on(in the previous post Mark shared some great photos of some of these performers) …  In 1908 still fed up with his imitators Houdini published the secrets of the Handcuff Act and put it on the market which he called the "Defiance Handcuff Act" not his secrets of course…..the secrets of his imitators. And that same year 1908 Houdini dropped the Handcuff Challenge Act from his show….I’m not saying the handcuff act was going to the dogs but in 1918 Houdini had taught his dog a little fox terrier named Bobby to get out of a pair of miniature handcuffs Bobby was billed as the "First Handcuff King Dog"… these were Bobby's handcuffs I believe they where made by Houdini's friend Thomas Froggatt 

Fred
I love your miniature handcuffs. Bobby was a lucky dog, and so are you.  Lucky I mean, not a dog.
Are your cuffs marked Hiatt?

I have a similar miniature padlock marked Hiatt with a matching Hiatt key.  If I had a second one I  could make my own version of Bobby's cuffs.

Joe

Hey Joe,
Sorry to say there are no markings ....What leads me to believe they where made by Froggatt in the 2007 Handcuff Annual Mick Hanzlik wrote this great article about Houdini and Froggatt and there is a photo of  Froggatt's grand daughter having a pair similar to the Bobby cuffs

Fred
Oh I agree, I think Froggatt made them, but by then Froggatt was working for Hiatt.
But I can easily believe that he would have used stock that was not marked.
Joe

Joe,
If Froggatt was working with or for Houdini maybe that's why they weren't marked,,,,  Houdin being Houdinii didn't want to giveaway his sources to his imatators.... just a thought
Fred

My Cuff of the Day will be another modern cuff, since that is what I have in my collection.
This particular example is a Peerless "Patent Model" that was found in the Smith & Wesson factory in an unmarked or labeled maroon box.
It was not sent to the Peerless Handcuff Co. after manufacture, therefore it never entered the marketplace.
The interesting part of the "patent model" is, that S&W placed their name on the front of these cuffs, MFGD BY SMITH & WESSON and
The Peerless Handcuff Co. was placed on the rear side of the cuff. I'm not sure if Peerless agreed with this and wanted a well known 
brand name placed on the front maybe to help sales, or if S&W said, we are going to get our name on first since we are manufacturing them.
Whatever the scheme was, it changed on the next introduction on the Model 1, when The Peerless Handcuff Co. name was on the front of the 
cuffs from that time forward.
Dave

Dave
You have a very nice cuff there. Few are in such good condition.
Joe

Here is my cuff of the day. I posted this a few years ago, and not much was known of it or its origins. The handcuff is marked "Lockwood Bros". It is believed that these may have been made by Hiatt for the Lockwood Bros. I do not have the original key with them, but I have a key that works fine on them.  Cuffs are still fully functional. This is the only cuff I have ever seen from the Lockwood Bros, so i know none of their history.
-Richard Knip-

Nice pix all week fellas...My cuff of the day isn't quite the tier of the rest, but one I'm glad to have in my collection as they're hard to come by these days.  Sorry, my camera isn't super-great!

-Kris

Oh Richard.  Your Lockwood Bros. cuff is one I really wish I had.  Lockwood Bros. were a major manufacturer of knives.
I know of one other example of a Lockwood Brothers handcuff, a plug 8.   It was in a auction in Australia about 8 years ago.
It was attributed to Houdini and thus it sold for a lot of money.  I know because I was the second high bidder.

So congratulations on having a really great cuff.
Joe

It's great to see such a variety of cuffs being shared here! I'm enjoying the Houdini theme present in some of your contributions, I don't know too much about him other than the common knowledge. 

jettaboykrs, those are Adams handcuffs, right? I always thought those were nice looking cuffs. I note the distinct style of the three chain links and the clevis connectors is often shared by Towers double lock and Towers detective cuffs. I believe there is some shared history as far as patents and makers go.

Here is my cuff of April 2

This is... -Yes, what is it? The top reflect the design of a German Berliner and the bows an Irish 8. Lockable in two positions.

The story behind this cuff is that it once was bought by a German gentleman at a flea market in Celle (Germany) about 35 years ago. It came in a big coffer with another 60-70 old and odd German restraints. The lot sold very cheap. The buyer didn’t get any information on where they came from. My guess is that they were once a collection that nobody took care of after the owner’s passing and therefore ended up at the flea market as “crap”, they supposed to have no value.

Many years later, in 2010, the owner contacted we through my web site. He sent me photos of cuffs I’ve never seen before. I bought this and a few more including three Berliner. As we had just bought a house, my assets were slightly limited.

The German gentleman was very nice and honest but he was not stupid as he had identified the values very accurate. I also helped him to sell many cuffs to established collectors in the community. Some of you might remember this story.

So, what cuff is this? Honestly, I don’t know. My guess is that this is a one off cuff made by a very skilled craftsman a long time ago. True German craftsmanship. 

Lars

WOW! This round of posts has brought out some great looking cuffs! Well done, gentlemen!
-Richard Knip-

Lars Great Cuff!!!

Houdini was 23 years old …When the first mention of him being called the King of handcuffs, it was in December of 1897 in Columbus Ohio where Houdini gets a brief mention in the towns newspaper The Daily Advocate…. the next was March of 1898 in Grand Rapids Michigan…. Houdini was challenging the local police departments to get out of there handcuffs for publicity … Houdini wrote in his diary…” police had 14 styles of handcuffs” so as you can imagine it wasn’t an easy act to do and Houdini wasn’t really having much success performing it at that time. There are pictures of Houdini up to his elbows in handcuffs this required amazing ingenuity quick thinking and a lot of nerve. When Houdini first started to except handcuffs for a challenge he would stare at the challenger with his deep steel blue grey eyes and that Houdini smile and would proceed to say…. if I can release myself from these handcuffs may I keep them, at that point in front of a theater filled with patrons the challengers were reluctant to say no so Houdini started to collect these handcuffs he would take them apart and study them and sometimes even modify them to make his work easier.  Not everyone had handcuffs to challenge Houdini with so not to disappoint his audience Houdini would arrange for people in the audience to come up to the stage with his handcuffs. This also worked in his favor if a strange handcuff would appear he would place the strange handcuff either higher on his arms or between his own handcuffs. The Handcuff act slowly became a success so to help create the excitement Houdini created his own handcuffs for challenges and for publicity. We know of five handcuffs that Houdini had constructed for himself. The cuffs that are shown in the photo Mark has shared are replicas of these five famous Houdini handcuffs. They were recreated by master locksmith Ian McColl and are quite collectable today .These handcuffs all severed Houdini with a purpose the first cuff is the “Bell Cuff’ a bell would ring  to alert the challenger when the cuff was open and closed. That handcuff according to the family was traded for some plumbing work done in their home so we don’t know the whereabouts of that handcuff today, the second one down is the most famous and that is the “Mirror Handcuff” named after the famous  London Mirror Newspaper challenge of 1904 and now is in magicians  David Copperfield amazing collection.” The Russian Manacle” that’s the one that looks like a massive padlock with two big loops at the top….  and that cuff today is in the Society of American Magicians Museum in LA, the next is the ”The Letter Cuff” that is the chain looking cuff it works like a combination lock which was used to trap one of Houdini’s imitators the imitator thought he had learned of the combination cuff  but Houdini had a changed the combination to read fraud  that cuff is in a private collection in Michigan ,  the last cuff is the “Hungarian Handcuff”  which is believed to be the prototype for the Mirror handcuffs which both use a Brahma lock and now called the Séance cuff and that is now part of The Official Houdini séance owned by Bill Radner

Stay safe in these trying times