6 checked · 3 we'd call first
Flemington, Hunterdon County
The oldest, best-known shop in the county, with a real Flemington storefront and decades of reviews. A third-party tracker claimed its license expired in 2023; that is wrong. We pulled the state registry directly and the locksmith business license is Active.
Flemington, Hunterdon County
In-county and owner-operated with a real street address, 5.0 on Angi with reviewers naming the owner. Locksmith business license pulled directly from the state registry: Active.
Plainfield HQ with a staffed branch at 1203 State Highway 31, Clinton
A third-generation shop in business since the late 1940s, with a staffed branch on Route 31 in Clinton and dedicated Clinton and Flemington phone lines. Headquarters is in Plainfield; the real local branch is what earns the spot. Locksmith business license pulled directly from the state registry: Active.
| Company & services | Based in | NJ locksmith license # | Registry status | BBB | Reviews (as reported) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hunterdon Lock & Safe, Inc. Residential lock installation and rekeying · Commercial lock service and master key systems · Automotive locksmith / lockout service · Safe sales and service · Closed-circuit security cameras and door hardware | Flemington In county | 34LX00000600 | ✓ Active · 2026-07-16 | Not checked | 14 reviews (Yelp (Flemington)); 4.4 · 54 reviews (Chamber of Commerce aggregator) |
| Lock-Tech Security Solutions Residential lock installation, rekeying, home security consultation · Commercial locksmith: master key systems, access control, high-security locks, keyless entry · New-construction/new-home locksmith setup · Free estimates and security assessments | Flemington In county | 34LX00002100 | ✓ Active · 2026-07-16 | Not checked | 5.0 (Angi) |
| Grove Lock, Door & Safe Co. Registered as Grove Key Shop Inc T/A Grove Lock & Safe Company Plainfield HQ with a staffed branch at 1203 State Highway 31, Clinton Residential and commercial locksmith · Door hardware and safes · Lockouts and rekeying · Clinton branch line: 908-730-7512 | Plainfield | 34LX00008800 | ✓ Active · 2026-07-16 | Not checked | 4.6 · 172 reviews (Google) |
| Dorell & Sons Master Locksmiths Registered as Dorell & Sons Inc Residential and commercial locksmith · Master key systems · Safes | Raritan | 34LX00003600 | ✕ Expired · 2026-07-16 | Not checked | 4.5 · 65 reviews (Chamber of Commerce aggregator) |
| Washington Locksmiths Registered as Washington Locksmith Residential and commercial locksmith · Automotive | Washington | 34LX00010600 | ✕ Inactive · 2026-07-16 | Not checked | (Google/Facebook) |
| The Lock Doctor Residential and commercial locksmith · Safes | Phillipsburg | , | ✕ No record · 2026-07-16 | Not checked | 5.0 (HomeAdvisor); 10 reviews (Yelp) |
Registry status comes straight from the state's verification system on the date shown, and you can rerun any number there yourself in about two minutes. Review scores are what the named platforms report and we have not audited them. BBB grades as of July 2026. "Based in" is the registered address city, which sometimes differs from where a company says it operates. An active registration is the floor, not an endorsement; the picks we'd call first are above.
New Jersey licenses locksmiths, which matters because search-ad locksmith scams are a national industry. We checked what's checkable on every locksmith we could find serving the county. Every fact on this page names its source and the date we checked.
We pull credentials from the official registries ourselves and print the date next to every status, new Jersey requires a locksmith license issued by the Fire Alarm, Burglar Alarm and Locksmith Advisory Committee, a unit within the state Board of Examiners of Electrical Contractors (NJ Division of Consumer Affairs). License numbers follow the format 34LX0000####. Verify a license at the state's official lookup: https://newjersey.mylicense.com/verification/ (select Business Search for a company or Person Search for an individual). The advisory committee can also be reached directly at (973) 504-6245 or via https://www.njconsumeraffairs.gov/fbl. Note: this project could not programmatically query the mylicense.newjersey.mylicense.com portal (it's a form/JS-driven search, not a fetchable page), license numbers and status listed for providers above come from the companies' own sites and a third-party license tracker (BuildZoom), not a live state pull, and should be re-verified before publishing or before a homeowner books.. Picks are editorial judgment on the checkable record: years in the trade, complaint patterns, review consistency, real presence in the county. When a pick has a weak spot, we print it. Here are the full rules.
No credible, citable NJ-specific pricing source was found during this research pass (only a generic, unsourced "$50-$200, up to $500" range appeared in aggregator search-snippet text with no underlying citation), omitting rather than guessing per instructions. If a cost table is needed for this page, source it directly from the two verified local providers (Hunterdon Lock & Safe, Lock-Tech) by calling for their standard lockout and rekey rates.
Do it in your browser: check any license · check your quote · the storm-chaser test
Yes. Since 1997, New Jersey has required locksmiths to be licensed through the Fire Alarm, Burglar Alarm and Locksmith Advisory Committee (a unit of the state's Board of Examiners of Electrical Contractors). Anyone doing locksmith work for pay in NJ, including out-of-state companies dispatching into Hunterdon County, is supposed to hold one of these licenses (number format 34LX0000####). You can and should ask for the number and check it before letting someone into your house or car.
The state runs a license verification lookup at newjersey.mylicense.com/verification/ (choose Business Search for a company, or Person Search for an individual locksmith). Type in the business or licensee name and it will show active/inactive status. If a company won't give you a license number, or the number doesn't come back valid, that's a hard stop, don't let them in.
That's the industry's biggest known scam pattern, and it shows up heavily searching for Hunterdon County: national call-center operations publish a nearly identical webpage for every town (same phrasing, same '24/7 no extra charge' claims) with a local-looking phone number but no real address or dispatch out of that town at all. They often quote a low price by phone, then a subcontracted, unvetted person shows up and demands far more in cash once your door is already drilled. The fix is simple, favor a business with a real street address you can point to on a map and a phone number tied to that specific location, not a network of lookalike town pages.
This page is run by The Hunterdon Scoop, the free email that covers what Hunterdon County actually talks about. Events, openings, and one contractor verified every week.