Featured Does anybody know what the divisions in this box was for?

The 'Night Owl Express' left the station for me back in my early 40's-I assume you two gents aint' kids anymore ?

 

I'm an old kid
who sometimes feels like being a young senior citizen (but that might be the result of going to bed so late...)

 

I was in customer service for a while, so i got used to crashing early - had to be a real **** 'perky pete' at work.
Plus my brain works better in the AM-the world gets real noisy later on.

 

I'm 21, I just look old

 

LOL ! My friend teases me all the time for saying I look younger than my age !

 

Another possible - magic lantern slides? It seems too small, but ..?

 

I"m chronologically 58, neurologically about 80, and mentally sometimes about 12.

 

I agree, it's too small for magic lantern slides, if it is divisions then lens or some other object that wouldn't be affected by being rubbed by the velvet, slides were painted, microscope slides would have specimens. Maybe it was retro fitted for some later objects? It was something flat, thin and needed to be kept safe from damage without being affected by the rubbing of the velvet. Hopefully when it comes it will shed more light on it but for £9 I didn't buy it for what was inside

 

For under a tenner, I don't blame you!

 

UPDATE, it came today and it's just deep marks in the velvet lol, no divisions at all. I still wonder what was in it as the interior looks original.

 

Are there identical marks under the lid? In the pic the lines there seem to be horizontal. Any marks there could help determine if there were several things inside or just one and the size of the object(s)

 

It's seems to be a padded ribbed velvet, I don't think I've seen it before

 

It's gorgeous and I just discovered that I also collect boxes! There is another thread about what we collect and I didn't realize I had a box collection until I counted and I have 23. That's an odd number so I might need another box

 

You always need another box and only 23, surely that isn't enough?

 

Agree. You can never have enough boxes.

My latest is a Dutch Colonial Batavia style document box in need of some TLC. Sold as a vintage Spanish jewellery box. Now I know Spanish jewellery can be quite extravagant, but I didn't know it needed such a big and heavy box.

 

I would love to see it, I'd be happy to give it some TLC for free if you were local, I think we have a duty as custodians to bring these back from disrepair if we can.

 

I've contacted a youtuber who posted a video shot in Iran about the production of modern Khatam and sent her a link to some of my stuff on here in a hope she might be able to shed some more detailed light on the Khatam items I have. In the meantime I took some photos of how small each tile is next to a tape measure showing in mm

 

I did clean a small patch

 

nice !
that's some pretty tiny work !!

 

It is so amazing, these photos were from my large Khatam cabinet, with a rough calculation there must be over 2 million overlays put in a pattern that cover the whole piece. No wonder the word Khatam means "to finish" it's in relation to no higher stage of master craft and to think all this work was done by hand. As a woodworker I would love to know how these 1/2 a mm bits of wood were cut, I know the exact shape was made with a file but how were they roughed out before filing?, must have been done with a hand plane taking a very thick shaving but some task in ebony.