Interesting, short article on Victorian lock picking

[oldlock]

Would the lock now be easier to pick in the detector-bolt-freeing direction and thus give you the correct bitting? Price does mention something about this I think but it is a bit unclear. Is this how Hobbs did it?

For a while Chubb detector locks were made with false notching on the 'reset' side of the levers. The comments re using the detector as a 'director' only really applied to the Original and Improved patent where the large 'see-saw' detector needed to be tripped, beyond that much finer designs akin to a spring were used that required very little additional effort to trip.

[Patrick Star]

According to Mechanical High-Security Locks (which is where I found the reference to the book, by the way), Hobbs simply picked it without triggering the detector. Heavy tension and small increments. Not too dissimilar from picking a pin tumbler lock with evil key pins I suppose... just a bigger mess when you screw up.