WHAT IS THIS OLD, BRASS? LIDDED BOX ETCHED HARDERWYK?

I found this at a thrift store yesterday; it is a old, brass box with a lid/top. It is also etched with the name HARDERWYK and a seaside scene on one side & a griffin? or winged lion on the other side - and it shines beautifully in the sun!

What is/was this? A cigarette case? For expensive sardines?

Googling Harderwyk turns up a whole page on a Harderwyk minertries in Holland - and 1 entry from the 1911 encylopedia BritaniaI telling about Harderwyk being a small quaint sea port town in Holland - I couldn't even tell if Harderwyk the sea port still exits!

I don't think this was from the ministry, but I also am not sure if such a small town would produce such a beautiful box to sell a product. I don't know what the heck it is/was!

Any idea of it's age? Is it rare/valuable?

It measures 4.75" x 2.5" x 1"

Thanks for any help

PS - Extra photos are in the sun so you can see how it shines!

 

Current spelling seems to be Harderwijk. I think the lion is the coat of arms. Likely a tobacco box. Could be 19th C. Certainly looks hand-engraved.

 

I can think of various possibilities:

• The box itself does not have to have been made in the town
• Blank boxes could have been bought wholesale & then etched there as souvenirs if they were ever a seaside resort spot
• May not have been made there at all, perhaps something done by a seaman whose ship called at that port, using a blank box as a memento for himself or gift for a sweetheart, sort of metallic scrimshaw

 

Thanks - I think that's it.
Any way to find out whose coat of arms that was? That may help date it?

 

Harderwijk used to be a sea-port until the dutchies became fed up with that damn sea causing disasterous floods all the time, so the Zuiderzee(south-sea) became the IJsselmeer(the ijssellake, after the river the ijssel that ends there), and while we were at it, the country became too small for all of us, decided to create some new land, a new province called Flevoland, the chunk of land to the northwest of Harderwijk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuiderzee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harderwijk

 

It's the coat of arms of Harderwijk.

 

I could be WAAAAAY off base here, but it looks to me like a person's name........as in "H ERDERWYK" and, it looks like someone has scratched the letters V F W on the front to the right....that's MY input on why I don't think it's a PLACE!! That being said, I was unable to find such a name either!!!! But granted, there IS such a place as Harderwyck!!!

Edit: I looked up @opoe's first link with the 1658 map...and "blew up" the map..... lookee what's sitting in the red highlighting box.....from 1658!!!! Velly Interesting!!!!! But I couldn't find any link to a 'coat of arms'.....

 

Anyway to tell the age of the box? I found some Brass Dutch Sailor's Tobacco Box with dame looking hinge from the 1700's! Could it possibly be that old?
I also thought it was a name at first because of the space after first letter

 

Nowadays Harderwijk is a sleepy provincial town(I have been there a couple of times, I can confirm it still exists...), but in the middle ages and during the dutch golden age it was quite important, it even had it's own university. Look at this old city map of 1652, the gates and church towers engraved on the box roughly correspond to those on the map.

 

It is a traditional Dutch tobacco box, an antique souvenir from Harderwijk.
If you ever visit the Netherlands, Harderwijk is worth a visit. Beautiful, and not as touristy as the Holland towns in the West.
I love the old 'Zuiderzee' towns, the coast of the former 'sea' is dotted with gorgeous little towns. Once very important, but not anymore, which is why so many good historic buildings have been preserved.

In fact, it is so sleepy, they managed to lose 4.5 meters of the historic bastion wall near the old harbour recently. No one knows what happened, but it was there in may, and in september someone of the sleepy Harderwijk historical society noticed it was missing. An investigation has been started, I don't know how long that will take.....

Opoe, if you get a chance to visit Harderwijk again, do so, before the whole town vanishes.