Old key ring help

[Goldstar1]

Here is a ring of keys i found a while back , I was just detecting randomly by a small stream in an old gold mining area and found this , I was super stoked. I decided to clean and preserve them all except the small brass one and the other small one which i believe is a watch or time piece winder, I also could not preserve the ring itself as it is too delicate. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas as to the age these might have been in use and any ideas what they might have been for . The largest is appx. 2 1/4 " long , so they are all fairly small.
Thanks for any input .

 

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[TWray]

I have no idea on age. But that’s a cool find. I bet that guy was upset at the time.

 

[jewelerguy]

cool find. kinda like a time capsule of sorts. my guess is 1850's-ish, and yes on the watch winder

 

[trikikiwi]

Cool find. The modern equivalent for the late owner would probably be, losing your phone!

If I may just say; try taking similar photos of your find, on a dark background, a dark blue cotton is usually good. Use natural light if possible, ie. no flash. You will be surprised by the additional detail you (and we) will see in your pics. Let me know how it goes.
Cheers, Mike

 

[Goldstar1]

Thanks for the interest. Yes I would think it was a real bummer to lose these back in the day. This was and even more so today in a very remote area, the nearest structure ruins that I have found is a couple miles away and the nearest modern town is about 50 miles away . I am kind of thinking someone may have taken their clothes off to bathe in the stream and lost them but who knows ? I would really like to find out an idea of what kind of locks they went to and it could be possible to cross reference old newspaper articles if there was any mention of the loss , I know thats a real long shot....

Thanks for the tips on pictures , I am not a very good photographer obviously

 

[DCMatt]

How close is the nearest railroad? Possibly a set of conductors keys...

 

[HuntinDog]

I would say your largest key is a door key and the rest are padlock and cabinet keys except the two smallest are watch keys.
I would think the are late 19c.
They are very cool finds.
Congrats

 

[Tony in SC]

My uncle was a locksmith, He had several big rings of different type keys.

 

[BosnMate]

I have a roll top desk I think is 1920's prohibition era, because there is a hidden booze cabinet, and that desk has the same style of keys for three different locks, a drawer, the roll top itself and a locking cubby.

 

[Bodkin]

Very cool find!

 

[Goldstar1]

Thanks everyone for the ideas ! I think I am getting closer , this gives me some good ideas. When I found these I was super stoked and detected a little more around the area without finding anything more ,but a hell storm of rain was coming and it was starting to get dark . The next day was rainy too and I moved on to another spot I was looking at going , found some interesting stuff there too but I wished I would have checked it out more thoroughly . I am planning to go back this summer with my f75 (I found these with a gold bug pro) and see if I can find any other clues there. So many places to detect so little time and there will be snow up there until at least mid June.

 

[what]

They look to be mostly warded lock keys and I think #1 and #3 (starting from left of 2nd photo) could have been for lever locks.

 

[diggummup]

To me, based on the variety and types, it looks like someones set of household keys from back in the day. Nice find.

 

[lockster99]

I would say 1860's to 1880's. Mostly cabinet keys and padlock keys.