Some artifacts make you wonder if there was an interesting story behind their purchase. This is a cork lock with a combination dial which would keep the contents of a bottle locked safely away. This one has a patent date of 1897.
According to a history of the company, the began to market special decanters that had notched necks to work with the locks.
In 1909 the Hayner Distilling Company came out with a special whiskey bottle of their invention. It was called the W.S.K. bottle, selling at $1.30 full of whiskey. The initials stand for Walter S. Kidder the designer of the bottle. While the bottle was often called the Hayner back bar bottle it was never intended for use as a back bar bottle. It was designed as a decanter to have a combination lock stopper that fit into the neck of the bottle and could not be removed unless the correct number combination was used on the lock. The lock supposedly kept other people (servants, for example) and young children from drinking your whiskey. The bottle was first offered for sale for the very first time during the Christmas Season of 1909. The bottle had grooves in the neck to accommodate the combination lock’s two protruding “dogs”. The bottles were made of only a good quality clear glass – no other colors of the combination lock bottles have thus far been found. Each of the combination lock bottles came with a set of directions.