DeeKnow’s Grotto

I went down to my local Key-cutting outlet in town today to get a copy made of the ignition key for my new bike. I had to order a blank last week coz the shop didnt have one which was quite right and after the dude checked the blanks had arrived he promptly got on with cutting my new keys.

Being interested in things mechanical and having several minutes to kill while the fastidious technician completed the task (with what seemed like an exceptional level of attention to detail) I started drilling the guy on the form of key-blanks and the operation of the key cutter.

My apparent interest really got him going and soon enough he starts apologising for the fact that I had to wait a few days for the blanks and went on to explain to me (with a wary tone of conspiracy in his voice) that the whole world pretty much buys their key blanks from just the one company. That company is Silca, which he explained is very old family run company in Italy.

After a quick dig around on the web tonight I happened across an interesting list of the worlds 100 oldest famliy companies, and Silca is one of those. From the Silca  website it seems that they are a fifth generation company founded in 1770 by one 'Camillo Bianchi' who...

started the business when he invented the key-cutting service. The company serves more than 130,000 key-cutting centers, locksmiths and manufacturers in the security and automotive industries worldwide.

Silca themselves are members of the Kaba Group a Swiss holding company with a list as long as your driveway of security related companies around the world (including a presence in New Zealand).  NOTE: Kaba are not to be confused with this KABA unless you want the locks changed on your life while your asleep at night.

Now I'm no lock-smith, but while I was looking around for stuff related to Kaba I happened across a thread in a locksmithing newsgroup that discusses US Dept of Defense lock programs specifications for locks to secure containers and vault doors protecting classified information. Apparently Kaba is the only manufacturer whos products meet the requirements.

I also spotted a thread in another newsgroup where a bunch of security-Über-geeks was discussing (in 1990) the various merits of Kaba locks vs the Medeco and Seargent Keso brand ones. Its only 5 posts and makes mildly interesting reading if your interested in "security". And it turns out BTW that Kaba locks are pretty good.

To wrap-up this mind-numbingly-boring trivia post, it may interest you to know that of the 100-oldest family run companies the ten most oldest is composed of two japanese companies (the two oldest, one founded in 578), one French, one German and FIVE ITALIAN companies.

Viva Italia !!!

11:14:28 PM