Making up a lunch pail o' lovely junk -- the padlock being the loveliest of all.[/caption]In my travels today, I happened upon a box of junk hardware. It was beside the garbage behind a house, but I still loitered until I could catch the attention of someone in the house. When I did, they confirmed it was garbage. I proceeded to root like a truffle-picking porker. There were hose clamps (yay!), and really old vice grips, engraved with someone's three initials -- "John... someone," the owner tried to remember. Knowing he had a "customer." he had brought out a second box-worth. He was Italian -- old, short, and stocky. He really looked like the kind of man who'd spent his life using the kind of tools, and stuff, he was now throwing out. It was more evidence of typecasting that he was so unsentimental about it. "Atsa old lock -- a good chunk a brass," he remarked when I singled out the thing which looked like a padlock, but didn't have a typical-looking key hole, just a thin, little slot on the left side of the case, at the top, by the shackle. The case bore the letters "WLS" in high relief. There was nothing that looked like a key to open it, so the only thing for it was a trip to a locksmith.
After cashing in my Bottles at Ontario, and 7th Avenue, I'm just a few blocks from Broadway Locksmiths on West Broadway. They've been in business forever, as this old store sign attests. They were busy, and I wondered to the young locksmith who came forward to handle my inquiry, if I should be bothering him with an old lock. I said, I realized this wasn't the Antiques Roadshow after all.
He smiled and told me I'd actually come to the right person. He collected locks like this. He took it away for a moment, and came back holding a slender lock-pick in one hand and the now open WLS padlock in his other hand. Basically, he told me, it was a lock from the 1800s. With a key, it could be worth about $160.00 CDN; without a key, about $80.00 CDN. He said he could probably rig up something for me to be able to open it with. We both agreed it was a lovely thing.
[caption id="attachment_5784" align="alignnone" width="497"]
The WLS padlock front, and back. You can see the "key" slot on the side, in the back view. The lock is sitting on the glass-topped counter, over Broadway Lock's original business license.[/caption]
I do love trinkets -- particularly chunky metal things. This padlock was a treasure, to be sure, but I didn't need it. The locksmith had described to me how he displayed all his vintage locks in a line around the walls of one one room where he lived; that sounded better than having it sitting in my storage locker. I told him all I wanted were photos of the lock to post on my blog. I didn't need to keep the actual lock -- if he cared to make an offer ... "Really?" he asked. We settled on the $30.00 cash he had in his pocket.