Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Help me crack a safe

Roughly three years ago my parents bought a three-story historic building located on Second Street in downtown Maysville, Kentucky. It was built sometime towards the end of the 1800s, judging by old photos of the downtown area, and in the Italianate style, with six cast iron Greek styled Corinthian columns out front. It's still in decent shape and solid, with huge brick columns supporting the underbelly (very cool basement). The building has survived several floods, including the Great Flood of 1937. There's a high-water mark plaque on the wall inside the cafe on the first floor, and trust me, that was all underwater.

I plan on leasing the second floor as an office, but that's not the subject of this post.

The building was part of the Maysville Bank from the 1890s until 1925, and later a drug store. Both businesses are notable because it goes to what this post is actually about. In the back room of the building, tucked away for who knows how long, is a safe. It was there when my parents bought the building, probably because it weighs a ton, but there's really no telling how long it has been there. The safe is locked tight. No one knows the combination, or what's in it. There's some evidence at the bottom that suggests it was in place during the flood, and the web's helped me identify the make and model as a Sargent and Greenleaf safe, dating to the early 1900s.

At this point I have all sorts of wild fantasies about what's inside. Cash! or drugs. Who knows? Chopped up Jimmy Hoffa? A few empty bottles like the Al Capone vault? Boring receipts or other papers? Could be anything. Could be nothing.

I've tried to crack the safe myself, but I suck as a safe cracker. A downloaded PDF ebook on safe cracking apparently doesn't make you a master thief. That's me in the photos with my stethoscope. That's me learning that stethoscopes don't help. I've considered calling in professionals to blowtorch it, but there's a risk of ruining any papers that may be inside (including cash), and apparently old safes like this one sometimes had poison vials installed to prevent just this sort of brute force entry. It also ruins an otherwise excellent antique safe, worth something even if it's empty. If you have the combo, that is.

So that's what I need, the combination. Thousands (possibly millions) of number combinations and I'm not imaginative enough to come up with them all. Being the clever lazy bastard that I am, I'm crowd-sourcing.

Effective immediately, I am willing to try any combination that is emailed to me. I want this safe open. Whatever's inside, we can split (if it's legal to do so, read as I'm not going to turn over absinthe or human remains). Think of it as a pseudo-lottery. Which brings me to my next point: Send me your combination idea now before I get ambitious and start selling chances on eBay for $2 a pop. If there's any lawyers out there, is that legal?

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

cut or remove the hinges then pry open hinge side with pry bar. works for me

August 20, 2007 4:57 PM  
Anonymous Jeremy said...

That's the final option ; )

August 21, 2007 4:20 PM  

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