Pair of British Military “Darby” Handcuffs with Key from the Korean War dated 1952

Here on offer is a rare survivor from the Korean War, a pair of British Army “Darby” handcuffs stamped JG 1952 and with the British ordinance mark or crows foot.

The barrels and the key are also stamped with the reference KE 2770.

The Darby handcuff was first used in the Victorian era, and by the 1850s it was recognised that it had serious shortcomings. Despite this, the design would continue in service for decades to come.

The basic problems were that it was very heavy, made from heavy duty iron and did not adjust to size so if you had someone with slim hands, they could slip it off and if you had someone with thick wrists, unless you had the correct size it was very difficult to put it on a prisoner.

The handcuffs were officially known as the ‘flexible’ type as they had a link between each cuff that allowed prisoners to eat and perform some simple tasks that earlier solid cuffs did not.

These handcuffs have a small wrist size and could have been used for a woman or juveniles, but I guess the North Korean men were not big in stature themselves; so most would have had small wrists.

The handcuffs are in excellent working order and are opened by screwing in the cylindrical key clockwise until the latch is released. They come with one original key.


They measure 9.7” (24.5cm) wide and have an approximate wrist diameter of 2” (5cm).

They weigh a heavy 650g.

Please see my pictures for the details of the condition, which complement this description.

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Thanks for taking the time to look.

Code: 50591