Lock picking is roughly 4,000 years old, about as old as the lock itself. Wooden pin locks were in use in Egypt by around 2000 BC, and the oldest surviving example, from the Assyrian palace at Khorsabad near Nineveh, dates to about 700 BC.
Wherever there was a lock, someone learned to open it without the key. This is the story of how that skill moved from burglary to a 200-guinea public challenge in 1851 to a hobby with world championships, and what it tells a Tacoma homeowner about the deadbolt on the front door.
Ancient Locks and the First Bypasses
The Egyptian pin lock was a wooden bolt with several pins that dropped into holes from a housing above. The key was a wooden bar with matching pegs; slide it under the pins, lift, and the bolt was free. It is the direct ancestor of the pin tumbler in most Tacoma front doors today. Picking it meant nothing more than a stick with the right pegs, and the countermeasure was the same one still used: more pins, at more depths.
Roman locksmiths worked in iron and bronze and favored warded locks, where fixed obstructions inside the lock block any key that lacks the matching notches. Wealthy Romans wore keys as finger rings, which is one reason surviving Roman keys are so small. Ward locks were the standard in Europe for the next 1,500 years, and so was their weakness: a “skeleton key,” a blade filed down to its essential bit, slips past the wards entirely. Most medieval lock picking was skeleton-keying.
The Eighteenth Century Arms Race
Three English inventions turned locks from decorated boxes into engineered mechanisms.
- 1778, Robert Barron’s double-acting lever lock. Each lever had to be lifted to an exact height, not merely lifted. Over-lifting failed just like under-lifting. It was the first lock to demand precision from the key.
- 1784, Joseph Bramah’s challenge lock. Bramah’s design used sliders arranged around a cylinder. He displayed one in his Piccadilly shop window with a sign offering 200 guineas to anyone who could pick it. The prize went unclaimed for 67 years.
- 1818, Jeremiah Chubb’s detector lock. If any lever was lifted too high, a detector tripped and froze the lock until the correct key reset it. The owner would know someone had tampered. Legend holds that a convicted burglar in Portsmouth was offered a pardon to pick it and gave up after months.
1851: The Great Lock Controversy
At the Great Exhibition in London, an American locksmith named Alfred Charles Hobbs opened the Chubb detector lock after roughly 25 minutes of work in front of witnesses. He then set to work on Bramah’s challenge lock, and after 51 working hours spread across 16 days, it opened. He collected the 200 guineas, and British newspapers spent the summer arguing about whether it counted.
Hobbs’ defense of publishing picking methods is still quoted in security circles: “Rogues are very keen in their profession, and know already much more than we can teach them.” The idea that secrecy is not security, and that exposure drives better design, came out of a lock demonstration.
The Pin Tumbler Comes Back: Linus Yale
While Hobbs was picking English levers, Linus Yale Sr. was building bank locks in New York based on the old Egyptian pin principle. His son, Linus Yale Jr., patented the compact cylinder pin tumbler lock in 1861 and refined it in 1865: a small flat key with serrated edge, a rotating plug, and stacked pins under springs. It was cheap to manufacture, easy to rekey, and secure enough for a house. More than 160 years later, the cylinder in a Schlage or Kwikset deadbolt on a South Tacoma rambler is a Yale in all but name.
Picking as a Crime: Yeggs, Safecrackers, and the Law
Through the early 1900s, “yeggs” traveled by rail cracking small-town safes, and pick sets and skeleton keys became evidence in burglary trials. States responded with possession-of-burglary-tools statutes. Washington’s version, RCW 9A.52.060, makes it a crime to make or possess burglary tools only with intent to use them in a burglary. Owning a pick set in Tacoma is legal; carrying one into someone else’s building at 2 a.m. is not.
Real-world picking, though, was always rarer than fiction suggested. Then and now, most forced entries in Pierce County are kicked doors, unlocked doors, pried windows, and stolen keys. Picking takes time, skill, and calm, none of which a burglar wants to spend on a porch in view of the street.
The Twentieth Century: Master Keys, Bumping, and Security Pins
Manufacturers spent the century adding physical conditions that a pick could not satisfy easily. Spool and serrated driver pins gave false sets. Medeco introduced rotating pins and a sidebar in 1968; Mul-T-Lock brought telescoping pin-in-pin stacks in 1973; Schlage’s Primus added a second row of finger pins in the 1980s.
Two publications pushed the arms race forward. In 2003, cryptographer Matt Blaze published a method for deriving a master key from a single change key in a master-keyed building, which forced property managers to rethink key control. In 2005, the Dutch group TOOOL demonstrated lock bumping to the press: a key cut to maximum depths, struck with a mallet, transfers impact energy through the key pins and bounces the driver pins above the shear line for an instant. It works on loose-tolerance cylinders without security pins. Within a few years, bump-resistant pinning became a standard upgrade.
From Hobby to Sport
TOOOL, The Open Organisation Of Lockpickers, formed in the Netherlands in 1999 and began running the Dutch Open, a picking championship. Locksport International followed in the United States in 2005, and the Lockpicking Village became a fixture at the DEF CON security conference. Online, picking channels draw millions of viewers to videos of high-security cylinders being defeated in seconds.
The community holds to a simple ethic: pick only locks you own or have explicit permission to open, and never a lock in use. Manufacturers now watch the hobby closely, and several design changes in the last decade trace directly to a hobbyist’s video.
What 4,000 Years Teaches a Tacoma Homeowner
- Most doors carry an 1865 design. That is fine if the cylinder has security pins and the strike is reinforced. Ask for spool pins when you rekey; they add a little to the price of a per-cylinder rekey.
- Picking is not the threat. Kicking is. A one-inch bolt and a strike plate with 3-inch screws into the stud stop more Pierce County break-ins than any cylinder upgrade. Our deadbolt guide covers Grade 1 and Grade 2 options.
- Old houses, old hardware. Craftsman homes in the North End, Proctor, and Stadium District (98403, 98406, 98407) often still carry original mortise locks with warded or simple lever mechanisms. They are beautiful and they are skeleton-keyable. A modern deadbolt above the mortise keeps the look and adds the security.
- Key control is a Hobbs lesson. Anyone who has held your key may have a copy. Rekey when you move in, after a roommate leaves, or after a lost keyring. Landlords and HOA boards should read our guide to master key systems.
- Bumping is real but preventable. Any cylinder with security pins or a sidebar shrugs it off.
When to Call Peak Locksmith
If you are locked out in Tacoma, Lakewood, University Place, Puyallup, Federal Way, or Fife, call (253) 262-5630. Our technicians open residential and commercial doors without damage using the same picking and bypass techniques described above, with fast local dispatch, and every lockout is quoted by phone before the van rolls. Afterward we will tell you plainly whether your hardware needs security pins, a better strike, or nothing at all. See our emergency locksmith and residential locksmith pages for the full list of services, or read how the mechanics work in the science of locksmithing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is lock picking legal in Washington State?
Owning lock picks is legal in Washington. RCW 9A.52.060 criminalizes making or possessing burglary tools only when there is intent to use them to commit burglary. Hobbyists who pick locks they own or have permission to open are within the law. Picking a lock in use on someone else’s property without permission is a crime.
Who picked the Bramah lock?
Alfred Charles Hobbs, an American locksmith, opened Joseph Bramah’s challenge lock at the 1851 Great Exhibition in London after 51 working hours spread over 16 days. The lock had sat unpicked in Bramah’s shop window since 1784 with a 200-guinea reward. Hobbs also opened the Chubb detector lock after roughly 25 minutes.
Can modern locks still be picked?
Yes, given time and skill, almost any mechanical lock can be picked, but the difficulty varies enormously. Loose-tolerance builder-grade cylinders can be opened in seconds. Cylinders with spool or serrated pins, sidebars such as Medeco or Schlage Primus, or restricted keyways can take an expert many minutes or hours, which is far longer than a burglar will spend.
Do burglars actually pick locks?
Rarely. Most residential break-ins in Pierce County involve kicked doors, unlocked doors or windows, pried sliders, or stolen keys. Picking requires quiet, time, and practice, none of which suit a burglar on a visible porch. Reinforcing the strike plate and using a one-inch deadbolt prevents more break-ins than any anti-pick feature.
What is locksport?
Locksport is the recreational and competitive hobby of picking locks that you own or have permission to open. Organized groups include TOOOL, founded in the Netherlands in 1999, and Locksport International, founded in the United States in 2005. Competitions time participants on identical locks, and the community’s ethic forbids picking any lock in use.
