The Hiatt factory has closed for good. Production is being moved to Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4237515.ece

the english hiatt factory closes, and not one remark?...amazing!

Don't you hate when that happens?

Check out the two messages on June 30 and July 1. This is sad but old news.

Ron

Big deal, they're still going to be produced, just now in the USA. If there weren't so many liberal kooks in England, maybe they wouldn't have closed. You don't see people protesting in front of Smith & Wesson or the Peerless factory here in the US. I feel for the Englanders though...The majority of the crap here in the USA comes from China, what a joke.

Mr. Security

hi mr security, the point i was making was a company thats been around since 1780 ish, is now closing, to british collectors it might be a "big deal", i agree, the looney lefties are rife in britain, that's why so many right thinking people are leaving!. i was informed that sussex police, (in england, mr security), are now using ASP cuffs, not the best out there by a long shot, but cheap i guess!. IMHO the USA does produce good quality cuffs, (excluding ASP), hope the quality of the hiatts products stays to the same high standard of the british made items!.

The closing of Hiatt is indeed the end of a era. I think it is rather sad. Over the years Birminham had many different handcuffs companies. One by one they either went out of business or were merged into Hiatts. Now Hiatts is gone as well.

But even in death, the story of Hiatt's birth is still misquoted. Hiatt was not founded in 1780. It was founded by Thomas Griffin Hiatt about 1818 or a year or two earlier. It was a successor company to one founded by Thomas Griffin, which may indeed have started making handcuffs around 1780.

Joe

I live in Birmingham, England and the Hiatt factory is just a few miles down the road from my home. They weren't a large employer of labour, I think it was probably around 15 or so people, but nevertheless it's sad for those people and also sad for those of us who are cuff collectors. Yep - it's the end of an era so far as production in the UK is concerned, but it will be very interesting to see what their US-made products are like.

Mike Riccard
a.k.a. Mikeintightpants
Birmingham, England

Dear Mike,

It would be very interesting -- I write would rather than will -- to see the contents of what undoubtedly must be many stored and forgotten crates and boxes in various and sundry nooks and crannies of the plant.

Cheers,

Jack
http://www.editing.org.uk/tanis/collectibles.htm

nice to see that the times employ left wing moron reporters too, keeps itself in line with every other nutbar over there, im sure that "shamnesty international" is pleased with their free publicity. maybe cuffing wrong doers is harsh, but so is crime.

I agree that the Hiatt cuffs are of high quality, no argument there. In fact, my 2010's are my favorite cuffs over my S/W 100's. I would hope that the design and quality will not change when the production is moved over here. This will make the "Hiatts made in England" very sought after some day just because they are the England model. As long as I don't have to buy 'Made in China', I'm pretty happy. Which that's hard to do here in the US.

Mr. Security

In terms of security concerns Hiatt did some simple but effective things that put their cuffs a step again above American firms.

The raised lock case rivets and the bow pivot rivet were proud which increased security aginst prying or tool attacks (Inn fact now the rivets on Peerless restraints are this way), and the internal ratchet split 3 ways offered more security against shimming attacks.

What I would have liked to see them do and which I once suggested to Chuck Thompson is that they take the internal sliding double lock bar and split it into 3 seperate floating bars.

So, if a person were to use a bit of wire to try and pick off the double lock they may only be able to slide one or two of these to the unlocked position.

Sadly this was never done even though it would have been cheap to do and would have increased security some.

All in all Hiatt did make some nice things and the "Universal key" problem aside, and many of you who have read up on me know how I feel about THAT, Hiatt was steps ahead of numerous other cuff makers.

Pity they are closing.

Steve Santini