AirmetTango
Forum Supporter
Last week I was detecting an older park, and dug up a sizable chunk of metal encased in some tenacious muddy dirt. It really didn’t look terribly interesting - I spent a few seconds trying to remove some of the mud, but I largely failed. Part of it looked like it might be brass, but a big part of it was clearly rotting iron. Into the trash pouch it went, potentially to go into my brass salvage bucket. No pictures out of the hole, no recollection of depth or tone or TID…I couldn’t even tell you where on the site I dug it up anymore, it was that unmemorable.
Fast forward a few days later, and I’m clearing out the trash pouch in prep for another hunt. I pulled out that same nondescript item, but now it looked completely different. The clump of mud had dried and fallen off one side of the item on its own inside the pouch, and now I could see a fancy dial - this was a padlock! Wiping away a little remaining dried crud on the back revealed some lettering!
So I cleaned it up with a dremel tool/steel brush attachment and some 0000 steel wool and hit it with some Renaissance Wax. Turns out it’s a Junkunc Brothers combination lock, patented 1912! John Junkunc started the company, gaining his first patent for a combination lock in 1910. Apparently he was a railroad worker who got tired of misplacing the keys for his railroad locks, leading to him inventing one of the first keyless combination locks. The history is a little murky, but his company eventually became the American Lock Company - at some point their locks featured both the Junkunc Brothers and American Lock Company names. Eventually, long after John Junkunc’s death, American Lock got bought by Master Lock.
Anyways, I found a newspaper ad from 1932 that appears to feature this same lock, so it’s hard to tell for sure when it may have been made or lost. Either way, it’s a neat, old find…and even better when it comes as a surprise!
Fast forward a few days later, and I’m clearing out the trash pouch in prep for another hunt. I pulled out that same nondescript item, but now it looked completely different. The clump of mud had dried and fallen off one side of the item on its own inside the pouch, and now I could see a fancy dial - this was a padlock! Wiping away a little remaining dried crud on the back revealed some lettering!
So I cleaned it up with a dremel tool/steel brush attachment and some 0000 steel wool and hit it with some Renaissance Wax. Turns out it’s a Junkunc Brothers combination lock, patented 1912! John Junkunc started the company, gaining his first patent for a combination lock in 1910. Apparently he was a railroad worker who got tired of misplacing the keys for his railroad locks, leading to him inventing one of the first keyless combination locks. The history is a little murky, but his company eventually became the American Lock Company - at some point their locks featured both the Junkunc Brothers and American Lock Company names. Eventually, long after John Junkunc’s death, American Lock got bought by Master Lock.
Anyways, I found a newspaper ad from 1932 that appears to feature this same lock, so it’s hard to tell for sure when it may have been made or lost. Either way, it’s a neat, old find…and even better when it comes as a surprise!
Attachments
Last edited:
Nice save Ben and as usual great backstory. Its always a treat to find something at first you thought insignificant or complete junk. Nice clean up as well. Mark
