Featured Antique Rosewood Sewing Box & Interesting Contents

I don't have any questions about this antique rosewood sewing box that belongs to my sister, but I wanted to share it because of all the interesting things inside. What's kind of amazing is that her husband bought it earlier this year for $1.50 at a thrift store run by volunteers in a small town in Wisconsin. If I lived closer, I'd be there every day looking for similar bargains, but I suspect this was a once-in-a-lifetime find.

My sister doesn't plan to sell it (at least for now), just has it displayed on top of a small chest of drawers made by our great grandfather. It includes ivory thread spools, other ivory items, a little leather-covered notepad with pencil, a leather covered needle box, a teeny leather-covered book, some carved mother of pearl items, a little walnut shell pin cushion with hand-painted velvet, several paper items, a photo (tin type?) of maybe the owner? of the box, and other items.

 

Here are two more photos of paper items in the box.

 

Syphilitic remedy ???? Other than that,Im pea green with envy ! $1.50 ???

 

A wonderful thing.

 

Oooo I like that one too !

 

The little book with flowers on the cover looks like it could be a dance card.

 

I loved the little pincushion in a walnut shell, and the thimble case. Someone put in a pile of work on that pincushion.

 

Your box is beautiful, davey. I hadn't thought of the possibility of my sister's box originally being a vanity box--you might be right. The little loops look just like yours that hold manicure tools, but the little spaces for spools of thread seem almost too small and shallow for bottles. With the hidden pocket in the lid, there doesn't seem to be room for bottles any higher than the spools of thread laying on their sides (they're about the size of modern-day small spools of thread), so they'd have to be really tiny bottles.

Also, there's a little matching pink book-like thing that fits perfectly (with the spine showing) in the narrow slot next to the space for the notepad--and it has two flannel-like "pages" that are typically used to hold needles.

I couldn't remove the two square pink lids (no loops to gab onto), but maybe there's something hidden under them. And I can't figure out what would have been stored in the long space with the hole in the center except maybe a thimble since it's a shallow space, but I don't know what the indentations at the ends are for.

I found another box similar to my sister's on eBay that's called a sewing box. I wonder if similar boxes were made for both vanity and sewing items, and only the interiors were different. Anyway, I really appreciate everyone's comments.

 

What a treasure hunt within a box. Every little bit is wonderful.

 

That is a wonderful treasure!!

I will bet that everyone on this forum would have grabbed this box, paid for it & ran it to the car before they could change their mind about the price.

I will bet @Poisonivy would love to see it also.

 

That was a Kthanksbye price if ever there was.

 

The rest of the story is that my brother-in-law was standing around with some other regular customers and the volunteer clerk (all ladies) and they were all looking at the box, but the other customers weren't interested in buying it so my BIL said he'd take it. The clerk put a spur of the moment price on it we think because my BIL is kind of a favorite customer and she wanted him to have it.

When he got home he gave it to my sister and she put it away since she was going to be getting ready to have their 50-year accumulation of antiques/junk/household stuff sold (they had moved in with their son and DIL).

I helped her sort and organize some of their hoard and asked her where she put the sewing box, but she couldn't remember. We looked all over the house and couldn't find it and came to the conclusion that her husband might have put it in some obscure place since his dementia was getting to be more of a problem (and he had a tendency to occasionally do that with other objects).

But a few weeks ago, my sister called to tell me she found it where she now remembered putting it, inside a duffle bag in a drawer. She was going to sell it in one of the 3 or 4 remaining auctions, but decided to keep it for a while.

 

I'm glad it turned up. Dementia...'nuff said. it sucks.

 

a seriously nice piece of someones history !!

 

The obsolete Wisconsin bank currency is cool, and could be worth over $50, and maybe over $100. Its condition holds the price down. Another example from that bank sold for over $600, but was in much better condition. Definitely collectible.

 

I didn't realize the bottles were so tiny, and sooooo beautiful--thank you, Davey, for posting the comparison photos. It's so nice that your box has the original bottles. It would be fun to know all the different perfumes, creams, etc. that were kept in them.

 

Thank you so much, smallaxe, for the interesting information about the Wisconsin bank currency and potential value. I'll pass along your information to my sister in case she decides to sell the box at some point. I'll also print out your post so she can keep it with the currency.

I didn't realize banks printed their own currency at one time, so I googled it and found this information on mycreditunion.gov: "During this same period (1793 - 1861), approximately 1,600 private banks were permitted to print and circulate their own paper currency under state charters. Eventually, 7,000 varieties of these "state bank notes" were put in circulation, each carrying a different design!"

Before reading your post, I saw the 1958 date [edit: should be 1858 as pointed out by others, thank you] on the currency and assumed it was the year Wisconsin became a state, then decided to look it up and learned it was 1948 [another edit: 1848] (I should have known that since I'm a resident). So 1958 [yet another edit: 1858] must have been the year the note was printed.

 

You do mean 1848, right?