Glass jar with silverplate top and base. Old? Use?

Picked this up at the thrift. Think it has some age to it but am not sure. Have not polished it but it should polish up nicely. Minor scratches and dings but plate seems good. Top edge of glass is ground and polished. Fitted tight in to base. Not just glued. Top fits nicely but does not seal. Base and top are cast and the whole thing is heavy. Thought it might be plated iron but a magnet does not stick. 6 3/4" tall by 4 1/2" wide at the base. No marks of any kind. Old or not? Use?

 

I wonder whether this might have been in a doctor's office - maybe for tongue depressors? It just has that look to me.

 

That was my thought as well. Tongue depressors, cotton balls, etc. ...... so you think it old?

 

Not sure, but my memory of this kind of thing sitting on the white cabinet that held various "medical stuff" in the doctor's exam room is from the 50's.

 

Looks like something you'd see on an old fashioned drugstore counter.

 

Nice jar. Could it be some type of cigar jar? Something for the counter at a tobacconist? That the base is fitted is intriguing and not something you don't see much anymore. I would assume it's there to make it harder to tip the jar over. I'd say mid -1900's although it's hard to pin it down more. Earlier and I would have expected the metal to be marked as silver, silver plate or quadraplate and manufacturer marked. It's also the type of item that could be produced for decades before a design change was required.
Don

 

I would clean the base, sometimes there is a mark under all the black.