COLLEZIONI


A collection of door keys and lock picks (false keys) used as lock picking and burglary tools, at display at the Norwegian National Museum of Justice (Norwegian: Justismuseet) in Trondheim, Norway, a public museum exhibiting artifacts from the country's penal justice and law enforcement history.

Norsk bokmål: En gammel samling gamle nøkler og dirker (låsdirker) brukt som innbruddsverktøy, montert på ei innramma treplate. Fra utstillingene i Justismuseet i Trondheim.


Date

10 April 2019

Source

Own work

Author

Wolfmann


BROADSHEET FOR A TRAVELING

“DETECTIVE’S MUSEUM” THAT INCLUDED

A ROUGUES’ GALLERY OF NOTED CRIMINALS

Scott, A. W.

Exhibiting Under Weddell House 145 Superior Street 10,000 Curiosities of Crime! 10 Sets of Burglar's Tools Rogues' Gallery, 1000 Portraits! Detectives' Museum…

[Cleveland, ca. 1878.]. Illustrated broadsheet, 23.875” x 6”, text with wood engraved portrait.


An unrecorded illustrated broadside for a crime curiosities exhibition organized by an ex-detective collector.

Devoted to both crime and crime-fighting, this traveling exhibition was hosted and organized by “ex-detective” Col. A. W. Scott, whose engraved portrait serves as the centerpiece of the recto of this broadsheet. Scott is said to have had a “life’s experience in official positions that have brought him into contact with a world of criminals”; he has “had opportunities, enjoyed by few, for making selections from various official sources throughout the country, of articles illustrative of the different phases of the life and occupations of the criminal classes.”

Promising something original and interesting that will satisfy one’s curiosity, the exhibition included thousands of curiosities taken from noted criminals, thereby “truthfully illustrating crime, in connection with the life experiences of a detective.” Touted as the only collection of its kind in the world, the show included the “finest and most elaborate sets of professional bank and burglar tools ever placed on exhibition.” Press blurbs from Portland, ME, Providence, RI, and Bridgeport, CT note its novelty and appeal. The verso highlights the exhibition’s “extra attraction”: The Great Rogues’ Gallery of Noted Criminals, which included some 1,000 portraits. Also on the verso is a catalogue of fifty items in the Detectives’ Museum, including some of the following objects: "Sectional Jimmies"; "Tunnels for filling safes, and the powerful Safe-Lock Puller, a wonderful piece of mechanical skill, made by Bristol Bill"; "Ring Bolt to which Mike Martin, alias Lightfoot, was chained in East Cambridge Jail; Counterfeit Money Plates, &c"; “Safe Spreader, for tearing open Safes. Very powerful”; “Dark Lanterns, Bucks and Gaggs, and Old Prison Padlocks, a wonderful piece of mechanical skill, made by Bristol Bill”; “Dumb Jack Screw and Mammoth Drill Brace”; “The Deacon or Safe Puller, one of the most powerful Machines ever invented for operating on heavy Safes and Vaults, weighing 200 pounds”; “Noiseless Ratchet Drills, &c.”; “Slung Shots and Deadly Sand Bar”; “Shackles from Libby Prison, Neck Irons, and first Hand-Cuffs used”; “Swords and old English Billies, carried in England in 1720”; “Divorce Screw, for spreading prison bars,” and "The Car Hook used by Foster in the notorious Horse Car Murder in New York City." Admission was 10 cts.; the exhibition was open day and evening.

A similar broadside for the same exhibition in Philadelphia on 12 July 1878 was discussed by scholar Laurence Senelick in a 2010 lecture, in which he speculated that Scott may have been a former-Pinkerton detective.

No copies recorded in Worldcat. The only other record of this tour we have been able to locate is the afore-mentioned Philadelphia broadside.

A rare and fascinating crime curiosities exhibition broadside.

REFERENCES: Senelick, Laurence. Early American and British Popular Amusements (2010) at library.brown.edu; “Weddell House.” Encyclopedia of Cleveland History at case.edu.

CONDITION: Old folds, soiling, short tears and chipping to margins; no losses to the text.

Item #6644


Il Patee House Museum di St Joseph (Missouri) espone strumenti da scasso sequestrati dalla polizia.

Spy Museum, Washington DC

Kit di grimaldelli in uso alla C.I.A. negli anni Settanta.

Pick gun in uso all'US Intelligence negli anni Settanta.

Attrezzi per addestramento al lockpicking.

The Houdini Museum of New York. 421 7th Ave, 3rd floor.

Vienna: Museo della criminalità (Kriminalmuseum), nella Großen Sperlgasse 24

https://www.viaggio-in-austria.it/kriminalmuseum-vienna.html

Roma: museo criminologico

Via del Gonfalone 29 00186 Roma


Strumenti da scasso esposti al museo della Polizia di New York. "William Sutton's Burglar Tools. Circa 1920's".