HIATT BEST 104 Darby Large Size Handcuffs Late 1800's - very early 1900's


These are amazingly nice! They are a pair of 104 Hiatt best darby handcuffs of the large size. They are most likely the oldest handcuffs I own. Though I have no hard date, they are from between the late 1800's up to pre 1920.

These have a bulge where the clevis (connector which connects the chain links to the bow) being inserted in the bow causes the bulge. In later years they minimised this bulge.

They are marked with WARRANTED WROUGHT, though there's a lot of wear on the engraving. However you can see a comparison on the video which shows a later pair which has the stamping intact vs these. They are also marked HARD signifying that they are made from hardened steel.

They are pretty comfortable and are the heaviest darby cuffs I own at this point in time. They weigh 496 grams.

They came with no key, but luckily I have 2 keys which I was able to forcefully work into the mechanism to make them function nicely. Apparently HIATT were not very uniform with the bolt threading, so there were little variances between pairs of handcuffs.

I love these, the shape is really nice. Most Darby handcuffs I see have the slightly more rectangular shape, whereas the bows on these are a nice smoothly curved " c " shape.

Enjoy!

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