Twiskee patents and/or history?

[wylk]

I accidentally ran across a patent (486,685) that looks a lot like the Twiskee locks. These were very simple-looking low security padlocks that used a unique twisted key. As far as I can tell the keys used different twist directions (CW and CCW), and amount of twist (90 degrees, 180, 270, possibly others) for a very small keyspace. Some keys had side milling which was probably a later addition to increase the number of keys (in one direction, at least, i.e. a side-milled 180 CW key would still operate a lock designed for a non-milled key but not vice-versa).

Aside from this very old patent, does anybody have any other information on Twiskees?