I decided to write down what I know about the 29A lock because the story of how I found out what I found out is so intriguing. I was at one time about 16 years ago a employee of the Cincinnati Bell Telephone Company. During my 23 year career I spent the majority of my time in the public telephone group. CBT was a very small bell company and as a result in the coin group you were exposed to every aspect of the payphone group. Since we were also not a wholly owned bell company by AT&T we did not have to dissolve our relationship with them as the other bell companies did. As a result of this I was exposed to everything that AT&T cranked out on the public telephone side as well as the standard running of the bell coin department. As a result of understanding the of how things worked between the bell companies it has placed me in a unique position of investigating and understanding why or how something was done at the telephone company. In the process of collecting payphone I began to look closer at the 29A lock. I knew that each bell telephone company had their own 29A locks. I did not know how or why it was that way. I just knew that in CBTs case their lock was 29A 43.
One day I was on ebay and saw a really nice chrome western Electric payphone for sale. The seller stated it was the last payphone that was sold to the bell companies by AT&T, so being a collector I bought it new in the box. I just happened to talk to the seller because he was not far away and I was just going to send someone to go pic up the phone from him. In the process of talking to him he stated that he was formally with AT&T had worked in there public telephone group. I explained my history and the conversation ended with him saying (I have a 3 slot prototype vault door would you like it?) I said yes. Well I received the vault door and that is where my adventure starts.
So here is the vault door the fellow sent me. at first glance it is very strange that it has a place for a skate key which is waht gets used on a single slot payphone vault door. also know as a T wrench. well very unusual but not what really caught my eye.
T wrench moves lever to keep lock closed.
But that is not the interesting part, where was the # 1 lock used,what bell company used # 1? Well I thought it most be the oldest bell company or perhaps the first? So I called the guy back that sent it to me and started asking questions, of course as every other ex- bell telephone guy I come across,especially the guys that were in the labs it takes time to give you what they perceive as classified, top secret information. Never mind that the Bell System is long gone,they are still afraid that the phone police are going to come and steal their pension. so after two more phone calls over 6 months I finally found out that the 29A number one lock was only used by Bell Labs. It was their lock used on all the stuff they produced as prototypes. It was never used outside of bell labs.
That is a neat piece and a neat story. It appears to be a prototype vault door for a 3 slot. It also appears to be the "roots" of the "T" key.
It is interesting that you use the "T" Key" first, then the vault key. On single slots you use the vault key first , then the "T" key.
Great find of the month.
JMO,
Jim S.
So now of course I have the lock but I need the key. I call him up again and I ask do you have the key,he tells me yes but he wants to keep it, he also states that he has a document that has all the 29A locks by number,where they were used and all the key codes to cut any 29A lock that any bell company ever used. Now I have hit the mother lode. Up to this point you had to have the lock to cut the key, so if you were lucky enough to find all the 29A locks you have to destroy the lock to make the key,and some locks are impossible to find like the #1 lock. Now I need to get the codes and then I need someone with a bigger brain then me to cut the keys. Someone skilled in doing reverse engineering of tough to find items. But first I need the document. So I call the fellow up again and I start offering to by the top secret document that will cause the phone police to strip you of your stripes and pension. Problem is, there are no phone police and nobody cares about the document anymore. You cant even find anybody at the phone company who knows what a 29A lock even was. For to years I called the fellow off and on and kept raising the price for the information. Finally after 3 years of phone calls he finally agreed to meet me at a top secret location along the expressway. Which was Bob Evans. I sat down at the table and offered to by him lunch but he told me he was to nervous to eat. He had a guy with him who was also bell labs which had all kinds of interesting info to talk about bell system locks. I paid the guy for the info and I can't believe the piece of history I now had. Something that was about to be lost forever like so much of the other stuff we try to find as phone collectors.
WOW! That is some story. Two artifacts saved from loss. Plus plenty of great information!
Thanks.
Note up in the corner the date is 1975. The document is 41 years old. The list can be viewed and printed at the TCI archives. This is a picture of it. The next task I had was to make the keys. The keys to every known 29A lock on the page. That task was beyond my ability so I involved a fellow collector who was very skilled at reverse engineering just about anything. He figured out the key codes(which I have never released except to him,they are still not in the public domain) which were made to match up to a special machine we did not have. After he cut the keys in brass he decided that they were not strong enough so he spent months creating blanks at great expense made of the closest thing he could find to the original nickle-steel. There are now a few sets of the keys made out of very hard steel. The history has been preserved. Jim
There are complete sets avaialble? Every 29A key ever used? How much do they go far. Where are they available?
That would be a nice set of keys to have.
JMO,
Jim S.
Here are the keys.
#1
The process for making the steel blanks are cost prohibitive, it cost thousands to produce 3 sets. However I can check and see if the fellow is willing to make brass sets of the keys, they work, they just do not last as long. They are fine for the hobby part of this. As with all payphones the locks and doors will eventually be the most difficult thing to get. 3 slot upper and lower locks are getting harder to find all the time. 10 L locks used to be common as dirt and now are very hard to find. Upper locks 10G,21B,and 29S are going away fast. The 29A lock will go away also over time and since they all take a different key based on area some locks are already gone. I also collect the locks,I am trying to get everything on the list I posted. It is tough. Early bottom locks like the 15A,15B, 14A are already almost impossible. I also collect the original keys 29A. They are harder then the locks because only a few ever existed, at CBT we never had more then maybe 50 keys at a time and there were 12,000 locks. I ended up with all their keys it was another 5 year process. The original 29A keys do not tell you on the key what lock they fit. They only have letters and numbers on the shaft that was the code used to assign the key to a installer. So if you see them for sale you have no idea what they fit unless you have the locks to put them in to try.
You have the keys to MA Bell's heart! :)
I have something you guys might be interested in seeing
These are antique WE blanks from the 70s.... they were created in an underground chinese factory, since no one in the US would make key blanks the phone guy needed for his route...
pretty cool stuff!
Are they brass or steel?
They look a light brass color, don't look the same as steel blanks
Dick Pitzer was the maker of the keys and the decoder. He can cut any key from a blank. He also has steel blanks.
Nowadays most locksmiths won't cut steel blanks.
Quote from: andre_janew on January 16, 2017, 12:12:03 PM
Nowadays most locksmiths won't cut steel blanks.
You should say: Nowadays many locksmiths
choose not to cut steel blanks. ... (or can't or don't know how to)
ive never been to a real lock shop that wouldnt cut a steel blank, but they are $$$$
steel blanks are tough on expensive cutting wheels
you are correct, thats why are special steel cutting wheels and why locksmiths charge so much to cut things like safe deposit keys
The last time I went to a locksmith to get a steel key cut (it was for a Slaymaker padlock) I was told that I had to contact the manufacturer and give them the key number so they could make an extra key for it. I was also told it would be cheaper to get a new lock than to get a key made.
I realise this is an old post, but was wondering why some states are not listed.
We're these lock's distributed by region?
And not necessarily by state?
I was just courious.
I remember conversations with Paul Vaverchak about how he knew most locks by number but never gave locks or keys for anyones area to avoid theft issues.
Does anyone have pictures or specifics about the key decoder? Thanks
There are addition pages to the page you see at the beginning of this post.Those pages explain how to cut the codes with a drawing, and also pages with codes. As far as I know nobody else has those pages. I do not intend to release those pages until at some point I stop cutting the keys. Since this was originally posted Pitzer retired from cutting the keys and I took over. I generally only cut the keys in brass but do have a machine and ability to cut them in steel and do have steel blanks. Yes it is expensive as it takes a lot of time to get right. Certain keys cuts are much harder then others. As for the reason they are no listed by state,how could they be? The Bell system was not in every state. The Bell System was in regions. You determine the location by the area code and exchange. So if it was a Ohio Bell Telephone then you look up the area code and exchange and apply the list by the nearest big city on the list. It has nothing to do with state,it is the LEC foot print. The investment in the blanks has already exceeded the 16,000.00 mark as since this was printed I had blanks made to cut 21B,10G and 29S which are the same blank as 29A. All these are available on eBay.
After I read the above posts and knowing Bell company's were in regions, I figured a lot out about what key was used in my region.
This is great information to have preserved. The lock I have with a key I found out is from Illinois. Because when I got the key and lock from Paul, he claimed he knew where my region was but wouldn't give me a lock and key from my region because payphones were still in use, (this was many years ago)so he didn't want anyone to have a key to anything in their area, so he gave something for miles away. And still wouldn't tell what area region they were used.