price of keys for old doors?

foreign_correspondent

Hello,

Can anyone advise- my mum has had some work done on her interior door locks (doors are circa 1905) locks are apparently called Sash locks - she has bought some keys (9 in total) from the locksmith...

The keys are apparently old blanks that he has cut for the locks...

What would be a fair price to charge for the blank keys?

and how much for cutting the keys? - they have had to be cut to fit the locks, there were no existing keys to copy.

thanks,

I will attach a photo of the keys later,

fc

ariba10

They would be very expensive I should imagine.

Each lock would have to be taken out of the door, dismantled and cuts made for each leaver. Once you have made one key for a particular lock, copies would be reasonable easy.

I did it once on a lock for a chub safe that I had been given Key less.

Quite time consuming.

ormus

all the key blanks ive ever bought were between 50p to 2 quid each.
re cutting keys? about 2 or 3 quid each. say 5 quid max.
(based on having a copy).

foreign_correspondent

hmm, he has charged considerably more for the blanks than that - over £20 each I think (I can check) - then labour on top, which I dont mind so much, as its specialised work...

never_enough

I was charged just over £100 for 3 keys to be made for an old bookcase & sideboard. They had no keys , so were not just copies. I later had copies (of those same keys) made & they cost about £4 each.

foreign_correspondent

right, just checked it out a little more - the locksmith is charging £46 an hour for labour - is this excessive?

For old blank keys he is charging £20 before cutting.

latecomer

Are the blanks special or rare? If so then its reasonable to expect to pay significantly more (supply & demand). As for the cutting of the keys, if its a case he needs to make one key from scratch and then simply copy the keys then the first should be expensive and the rest cheaper. If all the keys need to be specially made then its going to be expensive.

If you want cheap, pull out the locks and put in new ones with standard keys.

foreign_correspondent

latecomer wrote: »

Are the blanks special or rare? If so then its reasonable to expect to pay significantly more (supply & demand). As for the cutting of the keys, if its a case he needs to make one key from scratch and then simply copy the keys then the first should be expensive and the rest cheaper. If all the keys need to be specially made then its going to be expensive.

If you want cheap, pull out the locks and put in new ones with standard keys.

Its already been done, he didnt specify that he would be using these old blank keys, new versions are available for a few quid each.

I do appreciate there will be a lot of labour time in making the first key (which I dont dispute) - but is the rate reasonable?

latecomer

did he specify what he was going to be charging before the keys were cut?

foreign_correspondent

no, but then again my mum didnt ask!

never_enough

I don't think it's unreasonable.