Locks and Security News: your weekly locks and security industry newsletter
17th April 2024 Issue no. 701

Your industry news - first

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Keeper of the Keys

by Marti Attoun, writing in American Profile

If Harley Yates’ friends and neighbors in South Lake Tahoe, California, ever lose a key to a file cabinet or a Model T Ford, he’s got a replacement. Since Yates took a shine to keys 81 years ago, he’s accumulated more than 350,000 of them.

"I collect all kinds of keys, anything that goes into a lock except a paper clip or a bobby pin," says Yates, 90, as he fishes a key from his pocket and unlocks a backyard tool shed packed with part of his colossal collection.

Since 1929, Yates has amassed more than 6 tons of keys for boats, cars, clocks, diaries, handcuffs, hotels, jail cells, jewelry boxes, lawnmowers, motorcycles, padlocks, safes, skates, suitcases, tractors, vending machines and anything else that can be turned on or locked up.

20th October 2010