I am working on a movie in New Orleans and looking to rent or buy shackles similar these:



They appear to have been on Ebay a while back and it was suggested that I post here in hopes of tracking them down. This is a fairly low budget period film and making them may be prohibitively expensive. Any ideas or information would be appreciated.

What you're looking at is Hiatt cap wrist locks likely marked with Pfeil Stedall & Sons which was a wholesaler of such items. Used like you see as a chain gang style. I certainly did not see this on EBay but you are correct it would be a pretty expensive item to purchase as you usually don't see more than a pair for sale, not a lot of 6. Best of luck! I only have two in my collection so I can be of little help.

Would you tell me pleese. how many shackles you wont?

Abdus salam
from Pakistan

Well, with respect to your movie, do whatever you want.

If you wish lots of flash, then have at it. You can have everything and all you want.

If you want historical reality; well, it might be rather boring. Depending upon when you wish to depict New Orleans. Was it in:

1775?
1803?
1861?
1866?
1917?
2012?

Movie-wise; it does not make a difference. Golly, John Wayne and his bunch were all striking friction matches to light their cigars in his great movie regarding the Alamo a long time before friction matches were conceived.

Historically: a bunch of crap. Movie-wise: not uninteresting.

If you are attempting to depict slaves on the auction block in New Orleans, in whatever year, then fall prey.

I think you need to check your history Franklin. Friction matches were invented around 1826 and used from the time they were invented until current times. The siege of the Alamo happened in 1836.....10 years after the friction match was invented.

Kindly excuse my rhetorical hyperbole regarding friction matches at the Alamo. Perhaps indeed some Frenchman came across from Europe to introduce those things in Texas in 1836.

Let John Wayne fire up a cigar with a friction match before Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna came down on him. Let this joker chain up a bunch of folks in New Orleans with British cap shackles in his movie.

Historically possible? Yeah, sure. The timeline fits.

Historically plausible? Mmmmm. Don't think so.

Franklin

Franklin is right about needing to know the time period, but calling him a joker is unfair.
He has asked for information or ideas not insults. We'd be happy to help.

Could you fill us in a little more about the movie? Are the "shackles" being used to detain slaves, prisoners, aliens, vampires? What is the period that the plot takes place? Although not all Hiatt cap wrist locks do not carry the Pfeil Stedall & Sons, there are alot of them that do. Leaving us a pretty good idea of when these were used. The Pfeil Stedall & Sons title was not used by this company until 1882, prior to that they were Pfeil Stedall & Son, prior to that they were known as Pfeil & Stedall, prior to that they were Pfeil & Co, and prior to that they were Parkes & Co.

Anyways, with slavery pretty much totally non existant in/after 1865 here in the U.S. it would be hard to imply these would be used on slaves. There are other examples of cuffs that could fit the timeline and I'd be more than happy to suggest what could've been used if you could better explain the timeline and who they are to be used on.

Sorry, I should have been a little less vague in this forum. I am working on a film set in 1841-53 called "Twelve Years A Slave". The main character, Solomon Northup, is a free man of color kidnapped in Washington, DC and sold as a slave in New Orleans. I have several scenes in which I need various types of slave restraints and don't necessarily want to use the same "prop house" shackles especially as our film is being shot on the heels of Quintin Tarantino's "Django".

The photo of the Hiatt wrist cap locks I posted was roughly what I had in mind for a scene in which 8 slaves are marched from a slave trader's yard in DC to an awaiting steamship. I need a different set when roughly the same number of slaves are added to the ship in Norfolk, VA. I then need have quite a few shackles and chain gang chains for the Port of New Orleans.

I think that in all three cities, the restraint systems employed would be fairly well designed and engineered, but I am no expert and would appreciate any advice. Also, if anyone is interested in renting anything, we can insure and provide deposit checks, etc.

Thanks
Michael

Have you talked with any blacksmiths? A good smith might be able to knock together a good simulation for less than the cost of a real historical artifact.

You want to speak to.

http://www.thak.ca/

His name is Robb Martin.

Tell him Steve Santini sent you.

Cheers, Steve

These are not americans or even slaves, but you get the idea. Ignore the use of handcuffs and handcuffs used as padlocks in the picture as I believe these were police prisoners.
I have also seen pictures of white prisoners transported in this way and personally seen Egyptian carvings of prisoners shackled by the neck.
Chaining around the neck is an easy option unless you want the more stereotypical dragging of chains.
It will be near impossible to buy a dozen authentic shackles that look the same and are keyed alike.

As an idea of possible leg shackles, these are on eBay. Ignore the price, that is ridiculous.
Paul
http://www.ebay.com/itm/real-AMERICAN-plantion-era-SLAVE-shackles-antique-/360169469150?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item53dbc5f4de

Thank you all for the advice and links. I do have several blacksmiths around here who are making various items. I have also bought a few nice shackles from both Ebay and local antique stores. I think where I'm having difficulty is coming up with 3 different systems for marching slaves down the street. I think one set will be like this:



with chain like this:



Any other ideas?

Well, when all else fails, go to an original source. What you are trying to depict is what was then known as a "coffle"

You can find the following at a variety of sites on the internet that host really old books and such for which the copyrights have expired or never existed in the first place.

Google this book title:

Slavery in the United States. A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Charles Ball, a Black Man, Who Lived Forty Years in Maryland, South Carolina and Georgia, as a Slave Under Various Masters, and was One Year in the Navy with Commodore Barney, During the Late War.

Yeah, folks back then liked to give really long titles to their books. And the war referred to was what we now call the War of 1812.

Anyway. Therein you will find this account of Mr. Ball's method of being secured in a slave coffle in Maryland before being marched to South Carolina for sale around the year 1810:

"My new master, whose name I did not hear, took me that same day across the Patuxent [River], where I joined fifty-one other slaves, whom he had bought in Maryland. Thirty-two of these were men, and nineteen were women. The women were merely tied together with a rope, about the size of a bed cord, which was tied like a halter round the neck of each; but the men, of whom I was the stoutest and strongest, were very differently caparisoned. A strong iron collar was closely fitted by means of a padlock round each of our necks. A chain of iron, about a hundred feet in length, was passed through the hasp of each padlock, except at the two ends, where the hasps of the padlocks passed through a link of the chain. In addition to this, we were handcuffed in pairs, with iron staples and bolts, with a short chain, about a foot long, uniting the handcuffs and their wearers in pairs. In this manner we were chained alternately by the right and left hand; and the poor man, to whom I was thus ironed, wept like an infant when the blacksmith, with his heavy hammer, fastened the ends of the bolts that kept the staples from slipping from our arms."

Kindly note one simple, albeit awful, fact: no ankle restraints.

It also seems the reference to "staples and bolts" is what we now call a bilbo.

Indeed, the hinged cap shackle thingys utilizing padlocks about the ankles would look quite impressive in a dramatization regarding the horrors of slavery.

But such would not be historically correct for the simple reason that you can't walk properly with fetters. And when you consider it, the neck collar thing is truly terrible. And much easier to film. Plus, the audience can relate faces to the chains, rather than a bunch of unidentifiable feet.

Oh, darn.

I done it again.

I used the J-word.

Mr. Martin:

Kindly excuse me for using the term joker. After consulting a recent dictionary, I see that this term is now, in current parlance, a term of disparagement referencing a deceptive individual. I now understand and will accept that current definition. Accordingly, please accept my apology.

As a boy growing up in the boondock oilfields of West Texas some half a century ago, there were lots and lots of words we used back then in that isolated location that have since changed meaning in our evolving English language. For better or worse, my mind is and probably will always be rooted in that past. For example, when I hear the word boot I think of an item of footwear rather than something you do with a computer. I do try to keep up with current fashions, but from time to time that old stuff just sorta leaks out.

Back then, and still in my mind today, when you had a confusing and apparently unsolvable problem on your hands, you brought in a joker to provide the solution. I suppose the origin of that term in that context had much to do with playing the card game of poker. Being so wonderfully adaptive, if you drew the joker in a hand of cards, it was the best card to have since it could convert an otherwise losing hand into a winner.

So, please forgive this old man who is still playing with a 54 card deck when it seems that most folks now use a 52 card deck with no jokers in it.

Franklin

OMG

http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/ballslavery/menu.html

How do you find this stuff Franklin?