A CT scanner cracked the code he chased for 20 years

A 400-year-old padlock recovered from a Welsh shipwreck has finally been opened, with help from a micro-CT scanner at Cardiff University. The combination was ANCE. It took three scans to find it. The brass lock was part of the cargo of the Ann Francis, a ship wrecked in a storm in December 1583 while returning from Spain. A metal detectorist named Peter Hughes found it buried in sand near Port Talbot, alongside Spanish silver coins and standardized coin weights. He spent two decades trying to open it by hand. "I tried to unlock it for about 20 years, I tried moving the dials, finding the right combinations, and I failed," Hughes told the BBC. The lock has four rings and six letters each, giving 1,296 combinations. There are also decoy letters on the ends that do not move. They were there to mislead burglars, who clearly never got as far as the CT scanner.