18th century French combination lock in brass and soft steel. Beautifully crafted this lock is a joy to look at and handle. It is stamped "Deposee" and "8". It has 6 rotating discs rather than the more usual 3 or 4. However each disc also has 16 letters ( letters rather than the more usual numbers), giving the number of poassible combinations as sixteen million, seven hundred and seventy seven thousand two hundred and sixteen (16,777,216) rather than the more usual 4 digit numeral based locks which have a far smaller number of possible comninations of ten thousand( 10,000). Another way of looking at it is that if someone methodically went through every possible combination on the 4 rotor digit lock and it took them a week to open it at the last possible combination, working at the same speed it would take that person over 32 years to get to the final combination of the 6 rotor text based lock. France circa 1780. 2.75 inches by 3.25 inches ( 6.875 cm by 8.125cm).