It pays to have a soft spot for Master Lock...Litteraly
You all saw my post a while back on the Master Lock 7777 cutaway I found and I figured I'd never see another one of those again! But thankfully I was wrong. I started searching for more old cutaways and found an antique laminated Master Lock cutaway and it sold for quite a bit more than I thought it would. By the way, If one of the guys on here got that please share! I took a shot in the dark and typed in "master lock 7777" and the lock I the picture showed up....
Now it was the same model of lock with a brass plate soldered on the back where the cutaways would be....even more evidence was the bitting on the key looked the same as my cutaway. I know that really doesnt mean much but, hey, I was trying to sell myself on this lock as much as possible hahah. I hemmed and hawed about it for weeks but after seeing how much that laminated Master Lock went for and some sage advise from my friend Papa Gleb I decided to take a gamble. And buy the lock and remove the plate and see if lightning could strike in the same place twice and it was, in fact, another cutaway.
The day I got it I tried the key from my cutaway in it and vise versa and it was a match. Still not a guarantee but a really good sign haha. Same model# and same key bitting. It was a few days before I got the time to actually remove the plate to see if I was right and I felt like a kid waiting for Christmas to come hahah. So, super long story short, I heated up the solder and pulled off the plate and this is what I saw...
So I was right and I now have two of these old Master Lock Cutaways. And I actually like the new one better because it was actually used and abused for probably years. As you can see in these next to pic it was viciously attacked by what must have been the world's weakest bolt cutters hahaha hah. But it held its ground and kept it's treasure secure;D
Here is a the latest pic of my entire cutaway collection. Might not be much but I'm quite proud of it:D
Thanks!