I don't know why, but today at work I started thinking about this. I was anolyzing my work key that I lock up the building with when I close, and I got to thinking...

How often are locks duplicated world wide? I mean, the basic key and lock system is that you have a lock that has tumblers that are pushed when you insert a certain key. Now, one might say that it's impossible to randomly by chance make a key that fits another lock..but is it?

Think of how many billions of keys there are in the world. You're telling me that no key is a duplicate? I find that hard to believe that you can have an infinite number of possibilities of shapes on that inch and a half of key..there HAS to be another key that fits my store SOMEWHERE in the world by accident, right? I mean probability just says that to me.

I remember back when I was in middle school my mom locked her keys in the car at church, and the choir director had a car from the same manufacturer from about the same year, and his key was able to unlock the door on my mom's car. So, yeah, it happens.

I remember when I was growing up, people would occasionally lock themselves out of their house and the usual method of getting back in was to try everyone's key in the old three-lever back door locks. Usually there was a match, from probably less than a dozen different keys. There's more combinations for the usual Yale locks, but probably not a huge number.

It's totally possible, just highly unlikely (depending on the type of lock). Different manufacturers, different key types, lock types, etc. Of course, all you really need is a hammer.

A hammer doesn't open locks, Oblivion, Morrowind and Skyrim have taught us that much!

Tell me where you live. I'll bring along my keys and check.