The Chinese carved bronze password padlock has five rotating discs made of bronze with four Chinese characters on each disc as follows:
“锄禾日当午，汗滴禾下土 。谁知盘中餐，粒粒皆辛苦。
Each line is part of a poem written 1400 years ago about Peasants working in the rice fields and each grain of rice is precious. The title of the poem is “A Hard-Working Farmer” Li Shen (772-846 AD)
Farmers weeding at noon,
Sweat down the field soon.
Who knows food on a tray
Due to their tolling day?
(*Note: Close Translation but I don’t speak Mandarin)
You can turn the discs easily, but if you want to open this lock you have to rotate the characters “锄禾日当午” in a line. Not a lock to secure your belonging because it is a very popular Chinese Poem. Easy to open even if you don’t know Chinese.
Both side of the lock are jointed with a carved head of lion. The padlock is made of Bronze, an alloy, made of red copper, tin and lead.
The most common decorations on padlocks was animals from the Chinese Zodiac , such as tiger, dragon, deer, sheep, ox, etc. In Western Zhou dynasty, dragon symbol for the mens locks and phoenix for women locks were mostly used. I have a large collection of Antique Locks, Padlocks, Keys, lock picks and Handcuffs, more videos and blogs at www.mrlocksmith.com Send me any pics of old locks, keys and handcuffs terry@mrlocksmith.com
