What is this asterisk-shaped lock?

I have not seem that particular key before, but a number of merchant safes use a day lock with a multiple keyway key fin structure of that nature. During the day when safe access is important you use the key, and after closing time you spin the cam dial (most safes do not have tumblers anymore.)

Bob La Londe

Try posting this question on "alt.locksmithing". Someone will know.

Joe Gwinn

I've seen something similar on a chain access in Pa by the dept of Forests and Waters, I think it was. It was at least

35 years ago and my memory isn't what it once was. :-) ...lew...

=A0 Looks like a descendant of the Bramha lock. Was unpickable for 60 years until an American locksmith claimed the 200 guinea prize for picking one. There's an "Inventing History" episode that shows the internal construction.

Chris

Wow, 200 guineas is one meal a week for almost 4 years.

Bramah's lock was one of the earliest mass-produced precision mechanisms and contributed significantly to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

Jim Wilkins

It doesn't look like a Bramah (note the spelling) lock:

Joe Gwinn

And it took him 51 hours, spread across 16 days to do it. Fascinating stuff.

Oh, ho. The upper-right lock in this photo looks very similar to the one I saw in France.

It *looks* to be similar in operation to the barrel key locks found on vending machines and the like (including some computers).

I've never seen one just like this before -- but I could probably make a lock to fit the key, given sufficient motivation, and access to the key itself. It would not be pretty, but it would work as a lock for *something*.

Now another interesting one (which I do not have a photo of) was for a hotel room in Cairo Egypt. It looked like three normal door keys mounted spine to spine, and each one cut differently. Must be a bear to duplicate -- which of course was what the hotel wanted. :-)

Given the blanks for your example key, I could also make a machine to duplicate it -- but that would take even more motivation. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

Also available as replacement locks for the Kennedy line of toolboxes.

For our international readers Kennedy is the more-or-less standard metal machinist's tool chest in the USA. [brown wrinkle finish paint] Gerstner in the top of the line wood model here.

Unka' George [George McDuffee]

------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).