The Lock That Started It All

In all it's glory.

Excuse my shoddy iPhone photography skills, I'll get better as the blog progresses(hopefully!) While this is a rather boring lock for a first blog, this is the first trick padlock that I ever received and it seems only fitting that it be the first padlock reviewed. It bears more of an emotive value to me than any other padlock in my collection.



So this is "The Lock That Started It All." It was gifted to me at a very young age, maybe 2nd or 3rd grade, by my mother, along with several other puzzles as Christmas gifts. The other puzzles included a dexterity bottle puzzle, an Alcatraz puzzle(took me ten years to open, pay for the solution? No way!), a metal Jailbreak, a few wooden puzzles of different types, and lastly this padlock. Every single one of the puzzles were appealing to me in different ways, but I couldn't get over this little padlock as a child. It just had that "cool" factor that you love as a kid. Opening it made me feel like a spy or some sort of secret agent, trained in my craft and exceedingly skilled at locking up valuable information and belongings (my other puzzles mwhaha).

I "rediscovered" this padlock in the bottom of my drawer several years ago, after already developing a twisty puzzle addiction. The old memories came flooding back and I set to to the internet in search of additional trick padlocks. I remembered the "lock with the bolt in the middle" that I coveted in the Bits and Pieces magazine. I hunted down this mysterious lock, learned it's name(Lunatic Lock), stumbled upon Oli's blog, saw some posts about these mysterious Popplocks and dove head first into padlock collecting, ultimately leading here today. I now have an extensive collection of padlocks, ranging from antique combination locks, to modern day one-of-a-kinds.

So how does it measure up as a puzzle? I'd imagine 99% of people reading this blog have already experienced this puzzle, and know that it isn't very difficult. I think as a child it took me about a half hour to open. As an adult, similar Indian trick padlocks don't take more than a minute. A larger variation is available through Puzzlemaster and an almost exact replica(!) is available through Grand Illusions or on ebay.

It remains, to this day, as one of my favorite of the many Indian trick mechanisms. It is indispensable to a trick padlock collection, relatively cheap, and very cool.

Open!