Any Wood Experts Here? Another Wooden Box Id Needed

I just got around to taking photos of the box. So sorry for all these pictures, but I figured the more detail I show the easier it is for the experts to tell me how old this box is and what kind of wood or woods were used.

Thanks in advance for anyone's replies.

 

And last but not least, 2 more pictures...

 

Thanks for the pics. Think it is walnut and 20th century. Maybe as early as the 30s or as late as the 50s.

 

Thanks so much @verybrad I appreciate your help. Do you know of a good online reference website to help me identify wood in the future?

 

You can google various woods to look at pictures but there is nothing like experience. There is a lot of variation and several species may fall under the same name.

 

Ok I'm a box collector and IMHO I think the box was made in the US or UK around 1920-1950, going by the lock and hinges I would say nearer 1920 but still machine made in mahogany. It looks to have had its original finish stripped off. I don't think this box had a set purpose but could have been used to hold chess pieces or something? It's value isn't a great deal, £10-15 but wouldn't be of interest to a collector.

 

IMO the key is circa mid 19thC and the mahogany box I would say is an apprentice piece blanket chest. The turned feet certainly look typical mid 19thC English as was common on chests of drawers. The key escutcheon has been hand cut and hand filed. Apprentice pieces like this were once common in England and also often can be mistaken for salesman's samples in the US. A mid 19thC English mahogany chest with very similar turned feet.

 

Thanks for helping me out. I appreciate your info.

 

Oh wow! Thanks so much for that information. That is very interesting.
I love your picture! That is a beautiful piece of furniture.

 

Hi again Adrian. Sorry to bother you.

Indeed, this box is what you said it is and I am so happy you gave me this id. I googled some of the keywords you mentioned and found many examples of these miniature blanket chests of the era that looked so much like mine. I knew by looking over this box it was definitely not made in the 1920's-1950's as some people here mentioned. With that being said, I am definitely not an expert when it comes to dating antiques and your information has helped me greatly.

Now that I found out what I have, I wanted to ask you about miniatures. If these are not salesman's samples, why would they make miniature versions of the full size furniture pieces? Was it a practice piece? I am intrigued to know more if you would be willing to take the time to educate me.

I will be definitely looking for more of these miniature pieces in the future because now I am definitely a fan of these small pieces of furniture which I think are a work of art. Thank you so much for coming here to share your knowledge. I appreciate you more than you may know.

 

As said before, somewhere, lots of these were called apprentice pieces in Britain but usually not too complex. Towards the end of his apprenticeship, a trainee cabinet maker would be required to make to scale a piece of furniture in miniature before he was let loose on a full sized piece. Also, a skilled cabinet maker of the 18th/19thC would be asked to make things in miniature for use by middle class merchants etc and wealthy for use as trinket/jewellery boxes, make-up accessories, some even doll's house furniture etc etc. Not denying that some were salesman's samples, just to say that most people when they see a miniature just jump in with "It's a salesman's sample" without considering the alternatives. Here are some more miniatures/apprentice pieces. The mid-late 18thC Georgian bureau I would say was not an apprentice piece, but the Victorian chest of drawers below it was a not complicated piece for probably an apprentice piece and I had a few of similar type through my auction house over the years.

 

That was so fascinating to read. I love those examples you showed! Those pieces are so beautiful. Thanks you so much for sharing your knowledge with me and the rest of the people on this forum. I appreciate you.

I started reading up on apprentices and found out apprenticeships were almost like slavery in a way. Basically what I read here: https://www.finewoodworking.com/2019/04/24/the-bad-and-the-beautiful-of-period-apprenticeships was that a lot of the apprentices called the people they signed an apprenticeship contract with their "masters" and were held to that contract and were often whipped, beaten and would run away because their "masters" were so mean and cruel. When they ran away, their "masters" would put ads in the newspaper offering rewards if they were found .

I had no idea that these apprentices went through all of this and sometimes were used as cheap labor.

I am now going to be looking for more of these little pieces as they are so cool!

 

I'm skeptical and think the 20th century dates we all gave earlier are more likely to be correct. The whole purpose of making a miniature piece for an apprentice cabinet maker in the 19th century would be to show his skills while working in miniature. But this box has been simplified so that very little skill is needed and virtually no hand work.

Lack of dovetails, using a blind locking rabbet instead, which is a 20th century joint and used by midwest factories (https://www.lanecedarbox.com/copy-of-accessories), is only part of it. The base is butted and nailed to the carcass and the joint covered with a molding whose only purpose is to cover what would otherwise be an ugly exposed butt joint (this is obvious when viewed from the back). Round finish nails are used to hold the base and molding; not at all what one would expect in the 19th century. As has been pointed out the lock and hinges are also 20th century. The feet are compound with separate pieces for the square top and turned bottom. It is only the key eschutcheon that looks like it could have been hand done, but those are readily available still today, factory produced in lots of different sizes.

The form may be roughly correct for an early miniature blanket box, but the construction indicates otherwise. Both need to be considered when trying to judge the age.

 

Thanks for the info. Now I am even more confused, lol
@Adrian Lewis I hope you can come back to comment on this as well. Of course I was hoping Adrian's information would be the correct information as I wanted it to be older, and I am not going to lie about that, lol.

With all the information I have received I guess I will never know for certain and will now be looking up the info you gave me about blind locking rabbet joints right now. Did they use blind locking rabbets at all in the 1800's? I could get lost on the internet for hours looking up stuff and I find it fun so I'm going to start googling now....

Did furniture makers use iron skeleton (barrel) keys in the 1930's-1950's? Wouldn't they have used a flat or more contemporary type of key for a box like this in the 20th century? The original key has a lot of patina and wear from the elements on it and the finish is pitted and appears to be made of iron. A magnet sticks to it.

***I just took more photos of the key and locking mechanism. Maybe this will help to precisely date the box.

I appreciate your input and no matter how old the box truly is, I will love it and cherish it for many years to come. It may be plain and simplistic, but I love the turned feet on the bottom.

Actually, I am going to be using it as a display prop for my antique 1870's antique French fashion Jumeau doll. She shall have her own trunk to put all of her antique gowns and accessories in it now

 

Although your overview of rabbet joints etc may hold water in the classical sense of an apprentice piece, we do not know the level of craftsmanship taught in individual cabinet maker's workshops around the country at the time. What may have been taught in a city cabinet makers workshop may well have been watered down in a provincial workshop. Hence the difference in quality of city and provincial/country furniture. Anything more would be sheer speculation.
As far as the lock and key are concerned I completely disagree. The key is classic mid-late 19thC form and if you view the screws in the back of the lock you will also find that the slot in both screws are off centre, thus indicating hand cut and pre 1860s/1870s (rule of thumb) before general availability of machine cut screws.
As you mention "midwest factories" there could well be a considerable difference in US and British techniques of the day and interpretation of the piece between factory and hand made as I am viewing this piece in the British style given the turned feet and general construction with which I am very familiar.
Apprentice pieces I have had through my saleroom have varied between simple jointed dovetail to pin tacked.
As far as rabbet/rebate joints are concerned your timeline may need revision.
"As can be seen from the numerous references to "rebate" in her text, the furniture historian, Penelope Eames, refers to "rabbeting" as a process known and practiced during the medieval period in Europe. Below is a descriptive example of some surviving evidece of the practice of using rabbets in medieval European church construction (Note: According to the British author/editor of woodworking books and magazines, Vic Taylor, "Although widely used in Britain, [rebate] is a corruption of the correct word "rabbet" See Taylor's Woodworker's Dictionary Pownal, VT: Storey Communications, 1987, 1990, page 158.):"
Also from the early 19thC circa 1828:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rabbet joint

 

Adrian you really explained everything so elaborately and I really learned something. I am so thankful for your extremely thorough explanations here. It took so much time and effort for you to write all of this and for that I am truly grateful.

 

Not to belabor this, you're free to disagree with the rest of us. But consider 1920's to 50's (time range suggested) would be 100 to 70 years old. Appropriate hardware still available now (https://www.amazon.com/Small-Brass-Mortise-Chest-Skeleton/dp/B0788RCPFD/ ) but even more readily available then and would give time to acquire patina. The brass screws don't look handcut to me. Steel finish nails, used in abundance, definitely not appropriate for a piece supposed to be old.


A rabbet joint is of course a VERY old joint, there's no disputing that. In fact in simplest form as your dictionary link shows, it is a small improvement over the simplest joint of simply butting two pieces together. But the joint on OP piece is a much later one, that was widely used in the 20th century and I have never seen used prior to that (though I certainly haven't seen everything). The link I gave shows factory produced joints (blind locking rabbet joint) from early to mid 20th century that look exactly the same; could have been from the same factory using the same power router jig:

 

Your key and lock are from a later era than the OP's. The screws in the lock are off-centre, thus hand cut as said before.

I respect your opinion but I have to go with what I have personally handled, bought, sold, auctioned and a lifetime of accumulated and handed down knowledge on English antiques. Plus of course the obligatory research.

We will simply have to agree to disagree on this one.

 

Awesome information once again. Thank you very much.

 

@Adrian Lewis

Thanks again for your much appreciated input and explanations. I found some of the information you have given very interesting and a learning experience.

The lighting in my photos makes the wood on the box and mechanisms appear newer and brighter than in person. In person you could see that the wood is very old and darkened from age along with the old looking key and the lock mechanisms. The key especially is making me feel this box is older than the 1920's-1950's (in my opinion which may mean nothing, lol).

The other poster here said "The feet are compound with separate pieces for the square top and turned bottom". I have found another blanket chest of this era that has the same type of wood square pieces above the turned feet. While this may not help with dating the piece I found it very similar to my box shown in the photos below.

I just asked the seller yesterday via ebay's contact seller option for more information on this box. He told me he bought it from an antique store over 40+ years ago in Massachusetts and that he remembers the dealer told him it was found in an old barn in Boston, Massachusetts. While that could mean nothing, sometimes a region could help identify a style of furniture leading it to an era it was made. It may possibly be a New England piece.

Thank you very much for all your help and thanks to everyone that has given their input. Not everyone is going to come to the same conclusion and it is okay to disagree with each other sometimes. I hope others who have been so kind to come here and do their best to help me, don't feel unappreciated. I feel grateful for each and every one of you.



MY BOX