The Chinese carved bronze password padlock has five rotating discs made of bronze with four Chinese characters on each disc as follows:
“锄禾日当午，汗滴禾下土 。谁知盘中餐，粒粒皆辛苦。
Each line is part of a poem written 1400 years ago about Peasants working in the rice fields and each grain of rice is precious. The title of the poem is “A Hard-Working Farmer” Li Shen (772-846 AD).
Farmers weeding at noon,
Sweat down the field soon.
Who knows food on a tray
Due to their tolling day?
(*Note: Close Translation but I don’t speak Mandarin)
[youtube]http://youtu.be/aZ02DvXHa6k[/youtube]You can turn the discs easily, but if you want to open this lock you have to rotate the characters “锄禾日当午” in a line.
Antique Chinese Password Padlock
Both side of the lock are jointed with a carved head of lion. The padlock is made of Bronze, an alloy, made of red copper, tin and lead.
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http://youtu.be/aZ02DvXHa6k
The most common decorations on padlocks was animals from the Chinese Zodiac , such as tiger, dragon, deer, sheep, ox, etc. In Western Zhou dynasty, dragon symbol for the mens locks and phoenix for women locks were mostly used.
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