Post Sun Oct 26, 2014 12:33 pm

handcuff secrets

poking around amazon, i came across a book that might interest members of this site, 'handcuff secrets' by harry houdini. supposedly this book was banned in many places because of it's content (at least according to houdini). although most of this book will be of interest to anyone into locking mechanisms, there are certain chapters that I found particularly worth following up on. chapter xvi 'a safe opening micrometer' details a device invented by james sargent for reading the opening handle travel for a direct-entry safe. chapters ix and x deal with different picks and tools that houdini used in some of his escapes. there's a really cool picture of a jack-knife style pickset that he used for lever-sets. the only bummer was chapter xv 'handcuffs, keys, and instructions'. this is a listing of most of the handcuffs in popular use in late 19th and early 20th century. the kindle edition that i got didn't have the illustrations of the handcuffs and keys, just the written descriptions. they probably didn't have the illustrations in the copy that was scanned. altogether a really neat read.