Editing Combination lock (section)

==History==
The earliest known combination lock was excavated in a [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] period tomb on the [[Kerameikos]], [[Athens]]. Attached to a small box, it featured several dials instead of keyholes.<ref name="Hoepfner (1970)">{{Cite journal
| last = Hoepfner
| first = Wolfram
| title = Ein Kombinationsschloss aus dem Kerameikos
| journal = Archäologischer Anzeiger
| pages = 210–213
| volume = 85
| issue = 2
| year = 1970
}}</ref> In 1206, the [[muslims|Muslim]] engineer [[Ismail al-Jazari]] documented a combination lock in his book ''al-Ilm Wal-Amal al-Nafi Fi Sina'at al-Hiyal'' (''The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices'').<ref name=Vallely>Paul Vallely, [https://web.archive.org/web/20080517055128/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-islamic-inventors-changed-the-world-469452.html How Islamic Inventors Changed the World], ''[[The Independent]]'', 11 March 2006.</ref> Muhammad al-Asturlabi (ca. 1200) also made combination locks.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Canby |first1=Sheila R. |last2=Beyazit |first2=Deniz |last3=Rugiadi |first3=Martina |last4=Peacock |first4=A. C. S. |title=Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs |date=27 April 2016 |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |isbn=978-1-58839-589-4 |page=188 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BPrjCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA188 |language=en}}</ref>

[[Gerolamo Cardano]] later described a combination lock in the 16th century.

U.S. Patents regarding combination padlocks by J.B. Gray in 1841<ref>Permutation padlock. Found in [[Google Books]]. [https://patents.google.com/patent/US2261A/]</ref> and by J.E. Treat in 1869<ref>Improvement in permutation padlocks [[Google Books]].[https://patents.google.com/patent/US93501A/]</ref> describe themselves as improvements, suggesting that such mechanisms were already in use.

Joseph Loch was said to have invented the modern combination lock for [[Tiffany & Co.|Tiffany's Jewelers]] in New York City, and from the 1870s to the early 1900s, made many more improvements in the designs and functions of such locks.<ref>"IMPROVEMENT IN TUMBLERS FOR PERMUTATION-LOCKS" by Joseph Loch, U.S. patent 200070, 5 February 1878.  Found in [[Google Books]]. [https://patents.google.com/patent/US200070A/]</ref> However, his patent claim states: "I do not claim as my invention a tumbler composed of two disks, one working within the other, such not being my invention.", but there is no reference to prior art of this type of lock.

The first commercially viable single-dial combination lock was patented on 1 February 1910 by John Junkunc, owner of American Lock Company.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/pdfs/US948280.pdf|title=US948280.pdf|website=docs.google.com|language=en|access-date=2017-04-15}}</ref>