Chinese Copper Brass Character Lock Key Xi

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Locks have been widely used in daily life for thousands of years . The development of locks aroused psychologically from practical needs of safety for individual, groups, and individual within groups. The history of lock is in close association with the materials available, tools and cultural background of a specific time. Contemporary art-craft technology, the cultural phenomenon in society and the economical development can be observed through the development and application of locks in different dynasties.

Locks have been drifting in the current of time and the amount of ancient Chinese locks which are well preserved and well taken care of gradually decreases.

Ancient Chinese locks, mostly key-operated bronze padlocks with splitting springs and a number of letter-combination padlocks. Major features of ancient locks can be described as follow: types of the locks, structure of the locks, material of the locks, size and shape of the locks, engravings on the lock-body, etc. There are also the following topics with splitting spring locks: configuration of the splitting springs, the location and shape of the keyholes, the shape of key-heads and the number of keys, the unlocking methods, etc. Typical ancient Chinese locks are splitting spring locks opened by keys. The lock-body and sliding-bolt were mostly made of bronze or iron and several splitting springs were attached to the sliding-bolt. Once the key is inserted, the splitting springs were squeezed down and the sliding bolt could be released from the lock-body.

Comparing with western locks, the major difference shown by ancient Chinese locks is that it is not always easy to insert the keys into the keyholes. In some cases, one could hardly find the keyholes in a short period of time.