French Locks That Drive You Crazy

Finally!!!! I have finally managed to track down mortise locks to fit our french brass door handles for the french doors. This is the end of a month-long search for mortise locks with a 70mm centre. This search began in February when we purchased 5 pairs of brass door handles, salvaged from a farmhouse in Provence. When I purchased these handles from eBay, the seller offered to purchase matching mortise locks for us from France. But since we were planning on using these handles for external doors, we wanted to be sure the locks we got were secure and keyed alike for all five locks. Naively assuming that one just walks into a hardware store to buy a mortise lock to match a French door handle, we declined the seller's kind offer.

We found out too late that Australian locks don't come in a 70mm centre. The fact that we wanted the traditional skeleton key instead of the euro cylinder made this hunt a literal hunt for a needle in a haystack. The only locksmith in Australia who could manufacture a lock to fit our needs charges $300 per lock. We did not have the budget for over 1k for locks. I decided to take our search overseas. We tried locksmiths in the UK with no success. Finally, we realised we had to attempt to buy the locks from France. This sent me on a crash course of locksmithing technical information in French. I contacted a few hardware companies in France but none of them were prepared to ship overseas. At one stage, hubby even suggested that we abandon our beautiful Louis XV handles in favor of plain locally bought handles that we could buy locks for. I refused to give up and with no small amount of luck, stumbled across Marchal Bodin. The guys at Marchal Bodin have never shipped their products overseas before but when I explained our dire situation, they sent an email today saying that they were happy to send the locks to Australia. Yes, we have managed to find mortise locks to fit 70mm centres, with skeleton keys, and all keyed alike for all five locks. The cost for freight is only 60 euro. I am so happy and relieved. This is a big tick off our list, and we get to have our beautiful handles for our french doors!!!!

#mortiselocks #Louisxv #brassdoorhandles #hardware