Cuff of the Day for April 30. Handcuff Belts.

Today we are looking at at handcuff belts.  These have been around for a long
time.  There a few early American patents and the British belts with attached Darby cuffs are well known.
They are also quite fashionable for an evening out on the town.

I will start with a Hyatt & Tankersley belt patented in 1888.    It has a pair of Bean patrolman cuffs attached.

(Note the spelling of Hyatt, not to be confused with Hiatt, who made their own belts.)
Joe

Very nice belt Joe!

I only have one belt and it's a, what I belive, a Hiatt belt. There are no Hiatt stampings on the belt or on the backstrap cuffs The cuffs are stamped with the broad arrow
and the letters "W D" and the number 10. The small lock is marked Hiatt and the keys are interchangeable which makes me belive it's all Hiatt.
Maybe Joe can add some more information.

WOW Real nice belts this one has no markings

Lars - The WD most likely stands for War Department.  My guess is Hiatt as well, but I am surprised the cuffs are not marked.   The belts generally are not marked.
Fred - I like the belt with a buckle.

I wish Joe posted the Belt topic yesterday and the Bottles for today.
Then I could have had a stiff belt from the bottle.
Ahhh, sorry for that one.

I too only have one belt cuff.
I was disappointed when I saw that a spacers were added to the cuffs to accommodate smaller wrists.
I later learned that this was done fairly often.

I do have a few of these myself.
The second belt from the right has Baker cuffs. The belt on top of the pile has Field & Sons cuffs.  The others are all Hiatt.
Joe

Mark - I like your Berliner belt.  Very nice indeed.

This is a small waisted steel belt

Joe, an impressive selection of belts!
Thanks for the information about WD. Do you think this is a WWI belt?
Later, and similar belts, seems to have clevis with screws to make it possible to change the cuffs.

Mark, a very nice belt. I believe the spacers are added in East Germany.
The spacers on your set it’s much nicer made than other specimen I’ve seen as some of them are very crude.

Lars
I have a backstrap Darby belt that is marked 1942. It does not have  interchangeable cuffs either.  Perhaps that feature was added in the 1950s?

The 1942 belt is marked  "Cliff Walsall 1942".

I think the Cliff company made the belts.  You can read about them at:

https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Jabez_Cliff_and_Co
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnsby_Saddles


Joe

Alright. Restraint Belts. I have some of those. Let's go! I start out with 2 belts that are of the same construction. I believe them to be Hiatt Belts. One has the Hiatt Darby style Handcuffs attached (key is a replacement key) and the other has a High Security set of Manhurin Handcuffs attached.

From Poland, I have this handcuff belt from the military. It uses the Old Style Peerless Knock-Off Handcuffs. The buckle on this one is very tight! It has cable re-enforcements running from cuff to cuff, inside of the belt.


In the Medical world, i also have several styles and configurations of restraint belts. This one is a Humane Restraint WA-301 Adjustable Belt. You can use the side buckles to adjust the length of strap that the wearer has on the wrist restraints. The buckles used on this are all locking buckles that use the same key.



-Richard Knip-

An unknown restraint belt, possibly from Germany.

A lovely belt Nils!! I also believe it's German.

Why a double 8 cuff?  
4 handed Chernobyl criminal?

A couple of more belts to add. First is a Ripp Restraints belt. It comes with a single Hiatt cuff attached, so you can cuff it around a prisoner's set of handcuffs without removing the cuffs from his wrists. I have also seen these with a single S&W M-100. The belt itself, is made of nylon and has a very strong, Velcro type closure.
This one is an Atlas Safety Company Locking Leather 'D" Ring Belt. You slide almost any pair of standard cuffs through the D Ring. It keeps the prisoner's hands pinned to their waist. There is also a locking buckle that uses a straight, flat blade style key.


Then, I have the Hoffman Body Cuff Belt and Restraint Set. This is the first model of the series. It uses standard Peerless 700 series handcuffs. Each wrist can be adjusted by length, how far you want the prisoner to be able to reach. If you give the tail of the strap connected to the handcuffs a sharp pull, it will put the slack back through the buckle and re-lock the cuffs in that position.


Lastly, I have two belts from Grip Restraints. The first has the wrist attached at the waist in a fixed position. The second model is one step up and allows for the mounting point of the wrist straps to rotate to allow for a more comfortable arm position. You can also adjust the length of the wrist straps from the belt. So, you can limit one's reach. The Grip is a restraint system that uses a seatbelt like material that is held in place by locking buckles that use a standard handcuff key. A very comfortable restraint, overall.



-Richard Knip-

I have a leather belt with Hiatt cuffs dated 1882, but this steel one is much older. I would say 1700's. The cuffs, chain and belt all have similar pitting but has been painted black, which was usual for old museum displays. The key is not original because the thread was inside the cuff when I got it. All working now. There are no cast iron parts in the cuffs. The lock tube is straight, not tapered. All hand made.

Fantastic set, Paul!

Paul
You do indeed have a wonderful set, but I am not so sure about your date.   As far as I can tell the Birmingham cuff makers were not making Darby cuffs at the beginning of the 19th century.  My earliest Griffin Darby style cuff has a simple spring lock instead of the screw lock we normally associate with 19th century Darby cuffs.  

So I guess that your fabulous belt was from the first half of the 19th century.
Super item
Joe

Hi Joe, you may be right.
Regarding date, I'd maybe call it a "crossover" piece of around 1800. All darbies, as we know them, made 1800-onwards have a cast iron lock body. These are made more like the plug cuffs and push-key spring cuffs and maybe the side-key cuffs where flat metal is rolled into a tube - Also like the video we recently saw of a blacksmith making cuffs. They lack the finesse of the cuffs made by the better known makers, but are very well made just the same. The modern key does not help date them but it does fit them. The attached illustration of restraints in York Museum is SUPPOSEDLY, what was used on the highway robber Dick Turpin.
The leg iron are interesting, as I know from a photo I once had, in that they swivel in the middle in a scissor action,

Not really a handcuff belt, but an old restraint belt.

It's the belt of a friend, he bought it as a restraint for goats or horses from ebay. We try it out and our researches said that it's an restraint belt from 1910-1920. That's because of the buckles, a friend of mine knew from stuff out of the world war one. We found it in France. My friend who knows the buckles said it must be european of course, he tought about Germany.

If somebody has more information about it I would be happy to hear something about it <3

Because of the straps, to photograph this belt when he's lay down it's really difficult, so I am wearing it for this photo.

Yorkshire Prison, from a travel blog