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So these are rather unusual keys by Pierre Haffner. I don’t seem to be able to find much about him or his unique key design. I can only assume it was either not very good or too expensive to produce?
I have included picture of the 2 keys I have along with some photos of Pierre and a safe.
Please let me know if you have any info on this?
(Ps searching the forum this looks to be the first post about this key which is interesting).
Some more pictures...
The keys with the turned flutes and flats on the end are simply for turning the geared combination lock tubes, those comb locks were typical of french safes at the time.
Attachment 21520
Update; realised the French text accompanying the original illustration on the page opposite was irrelevant to Haffner so have cropped it.
What made the Haffner different was probably the rotatable disc on the outside of the safe which gave access to each of the combination tubes (to enable the above key to enter),which is possibly where any patents may apply. The key, although fancy looking is simply used as a tool to turn each of the numbers of the combination.
The Haffner key I have as well as operating the clicker combination tubes also operates an 8 lever keylock which retracts the safe boltwork, the action of turning the key pulls the levers onto the keyshaft and a shoulder on the levers hits the various sized rings on the key which lifts the levers to the gate position, I will sort out some pictures.
was doing a search on Haffner to try to find out some info and came across this, so for future reference, interesting mechanism.