Handcuffs have been used for centuries to effectively restrain and control people. Due to this history of use, there are hundreds of antique handcuff artifacts that are highly prized by collectors. There have also been some very strange handcuff designs. Today’s modern handcuffs fall into two categories: handcuffs connected by a chain or hinged handcuffs. Here are some of the weird, unusual, and truly bizarre facts and stories involving wives.
The McKenzie Mitts were a metal sheath that covered a prisoner’s hands in a glove-like enclosure. This prevented the user from picking a lock and handling a weapon. Since the gloves were heavy and usable as a weapon, they were attached to a belly chain to limit the prisoner’s movement. McKenzie gloves were patented in 1925, but only a few dozen were made. The only problem with the handcuffs was their effectiveness to the point that the prisoners couldn’t do anything. Most of the guards flatly refused to help a convict go to the bathroom, for example. “Since the railroads have strict rules about how to remove the shackles from prisoners during transit, the bracelet was no longer used and became the only locking device to be discontinued because it was too good.”
The “King of Handcuffs”, Frank Reno, became famous as an escape artist who owned and escaped from the largest collection of handcuffs in the world. When he was seventeen he saw the great Harry Houdini perform and begged the magician to teach him some tricks. Houdini did, and Reno enthusiastically began studying on his own. He dedicated a portion of his act to an audience member who tied him up and then escaped from his restraints. One night, two navy sailors and three circus workers tied him up very well. “It was a rough night,” Reno recalled, “it took me a full three minutes to let go.”
Despite the fact that there are over three hundred different models of handcuffs, the same universal key works for most. The typical model of swing bar handcuffs has perhaps twenty-four models. “Some brands of cuffs are difficult to work with, such as Thumb-Cuffs, Bean Giant, Irish plug 8, French torture thumb-cuff, and German Berliner.”