Lily Leg Irons

Here is a fair condition example of the very rare Lily Leg Irons. This pair was first listed for $50 Buy It Now, and subsequently canceled and relisted for $200 Buy It Now. The first buyer understandably left negative feedback for the seller regarding the canceled order which was resold for 4 times the price.

I was the buyer who made the second purchase; this caused me a fair bit of moral conflict. It's clearly against eBay policy and many people's concept of fairness to cancel a sale and relist for more. On the other hand(cuff), although the seller should have researched what these were worth, is it "fair" for him to make a pittance on this sale, when the buyer can turn around and sell it for at least several hundred dollars? Neither situation is ideal. When a rare cuff comes up with a clearly undervalued Buy It Now price, it's finders keepers, I suppose. 

I had to walk the seller through the printing label process, but I did receive the item. I am very happy with it in spite of the fact that I sort of "stole" it out from under someone with the inadvertent help of an unscrupulous seller.

 

This is one of my oldest and rarest restraints, right up there with the Froggatt Darby shackles. If I'm Guilty of snagging these for the still underpriced sale of $200, well, lock me up in my Lily irons and throw away the key. A 3/8" thin wall square socket should do the trick anyway. 

This illustrates once again the value of knowing the relative rarity, collect-ability, and value trends of any vintage or antique restraints. 

These shackles are heavy, stout, and oversized. The cuffs are very wide/broad, but fairly thin, with a fairly sharp tapered edge.  The locking mechanism is a simple shrouded captive bolt which screws the two sides together. The bolt head is square, I believe 3/8" to a side. I am unsure if the key seen here is original but I would think not simply because it is very oversized and the top bar is a bit crude. 

The bolt lock mechanism is in functional shape, but there is a false start on one of the threads, so that it is very easy to cross thread, the taper allowing that the bolt does seem to take up until resistance is met. Only by carefully providing upward resistance, holding the halves apart while screwing the bolt through its first few rotations, is the bolt secured properly without damage to the threads.