Junkunc Bros. American Lock H10 Padlock - Oldest/First Ball Bearing Padlock???

[Adrian Weber]

Here is the US1607758 patent for it:

[Donnie]

I too have an attraction for this style padlock...You are lucky to have the box , key & tag.
I have a couple of early version's of this lock...One has a brass body & one of my early ones is missing the pin on the reverse side.. I'm not sure when that change was made, the pin on the back side, that is. I would like to know this, if anyone can help.
Also my early versions are not plated....just raw steel and were not called series 10
But had on the front Junkunc Bros. American Lock Chicago, USA...pats pend
I can take photo's if anyone is interested..........Donnie

[Pschiffe]

The Junkunc Bros. - American Lock Company which dates back to 1912 introduced their solid steel padlock bodies in the 1920s. In 2003 American Lock was acquired by Master Lock Co. who shortly thereafter laid off 400 employees and shuttered the plant in Crete, IL. The machinery was moved to Milwaukee where components are now manufactured before being shipped to Mexico for assembly. The AH10D is still offered under the American Lock marque with a suggested retail of $28.90 ea. Many American Lock bodies are stamped with a date code to indicate when the lock body was made: Z=Jan, Y=Feb, X=Mar, W=Apr, V=May, U=June, T=Jul, S=Aug, R=Sept, Q=Oct, P=Nov, O=Dec;
N=1, M=2, L=3, K=4, J=5, I=6, H=7, G=8, F=9, E=0. Thus X H J x = March 1975, disregard the last character.

Pete Schifferli

[Adrian Weber]

Thanks for adding that information Donnie! Do you have any idea if the shield Logo is the earliest or later than the ones on the H10? That would be interesting to know!

Pete, do you have a scan of that older American Lock catalog?

Adrian

[Donnie]

Adrian, I too have a couple of the with the shield, In don't know the answer to your question, mine have U.S. on the reverse side....I too would like to know the sequence in their production........series H 10-----series 10------my brass one has a G with 6 numbers.
some of the others have more digit's........I think the early ones that open from the other side were early models, I don't claim that as fact, just hear-say...
I am sorry for the poor quality photo's, my camera defaults to 2002.
I just bought a Sony cyber super hot shot something, but haven't fooled with it yet
I should then be able to show close up photo's.........this is as close as I can get with this relic.........Donnie

[Donnie]

In my photo showing 5 lock's, the 3 on the right open backwards. Shackle opening on the opposite side from the H10 or Series 10.........Donnie

[Pschiffe]

Pete, do you have a scan of that older American Lock catalog?
Adrian

The catalog is c2003 so only about ten years old, but they were still in Crete, IL prior to becoming a division of Master Lock. It's about twenty pages so the pdf file would probably be small enough to post here or send via eMail. I'll scan it next week when I have time if you still want it.

Pete Schifferli

[Adrian Weber]

Okay lets sum this up!

• American Lock obviously produced the first ball bearing type of padlock
• This padlock is also known as H10 first patented in 1927 (US1607758)
• The Earliest logos of these padlocks have the "Junkunc Bros. Succr's To - American Lock Co. - Chicago U.S.A. Pats. Pend." writing on them
• Padlocks with the writing "Grip Tumbler" on the keys may be even earlier versions than the ones with the blank backside
• The American Lock logo "Junkunc Bros. - American *Lock* Co. - Chicago USA. Pats. Pend." that looks like a shield is probably after the first Junkunc Bros. American Lock logos and before the "American USA" logo

The catalog is also from the 70s I believe?

Thanks for your response BBE! It is sad to hear that historic information just gets lost like this Do you think contacting American Lock would bring any good or do they even have less information than we here?

Now we only need to date all the logos and in which time period they have been used (from when to when) and we have ourselves a decent timeline

[BBE]

Do you think contacting American Lock would bring any good or do they even have less information than we here?

American Lock is now a subsiderary of Master Lock. All the information was lost in Crete before the company was moved. Contacting them won't get you any info since it isn't available.

From my own records,
1,607,758 11/23/1926 explains the ball locking and introduces the, 'blade' tumbler as they call it, disc tumbler cylinder. It looks to be the earliest model of the H10.
1,663,799 3/27/1928 introduces another type of H10 that is not ball locking.
BBE.

[Adrian Weber]

Hey Retro,

thanks again! I believe you could be right on that info that this is maybe the oldest version. It does open normally though (toe side of the shackle on the right side and not on the left). Also interesting that the marking on key says "American Lock" and not "American Locks" and there is a line between "American Lock" and "Chicago U.S.A.". Another interesting feature would be the milled craters in the shackle instead of the normal half moon cuts. The craters are the same than on mine "Junkunc Bros. Succr's To" padlock.

Too bad I do not have this padlock for the timeline :(
I do not want to take online pictures as they are not mine and I can not find a listing for a padlock like this one on Ebay. If ANYONE has this padlock and is willing for a nice trade or sale please let me know!

I would like to make the timeline as complete as possible.