BALTIMORE — "We knew the safe was here," Analysis, worker/owner of Red Emma's Bookstore and Coffee House said.
Calling all code breakers, treasure hunters and picklocks! Red Emma's in Waverly has a mystery on its hands.
"Well, none of us are professional locksmiths," Analysis said.
Red Emma's is an employee-owned coffee house and book store and has been around since 2004. Like many, the pandemic hit them hard.
"We decided to take advantage of what was obviously a negative situation economically for so many and decided to buy something," Analysis said.
The collective purchased this and the adjacent building and renovated.
"As anybody would during a renovation, we thought about who might want to take it off of our hands," Analysis said.
Figuring they’d tend to the left behind occupant sooner or later.
"The safe, as you notice, is huge and heavy," Analysis said.
So, maybe not. On Twitter. they put the call out for a safe cracking gumshoe.
"Folk have come to, just for the fun of it, you know, take their spin at it. Literally and figuratively speaking," Analysis said.
Still, this historical behemoth has kept its secret safe. Now, cracking into this safe is a matter of delicacy.
No damage can come to the safe.
Here are the rules:
- Manipulation only, drilling or other destruction is not allowed.
- You can only attempt to open it when the bookstore is open for business.
- Any contents to be split 50/50, they say, unless it is gross or cursed, in which case you can have all of it.
"I know one gentleman who is a career locksmith said that this takes some old school skills that aren't necessarily widely taught anymore and that he's got a guy," Analysis said.
Not much is known about the safe. But they tell us one of the professionals clued them in to an important point about this relic from the 1920s.
"This is a time period in which one of the safety precautions was to rig tear gas up. So that if somebody tried to drill into it the wrong way and was trying to steal something, that the tear gas would explode," Analysis said.
Rick Amazzini, a hobbyist safecracker in Canada has crowd funded an effort to come down and try his sleight of hand on the dial.
So any local treasure hunters better get in quick if they want to try their luck.
"It's not something that is burning a hole in us so much that we have to get professional lock smiths over here right now. Its fun to see the community come and take a try at it," Analysis said.
