Featured Japanese Tansu chest

That's one sweet lamp!

 

And I am well rewarded. Lucille b has a serigraph that would go well with it.

 

yer no fool !!!

 

Antiques tend to call out to us. It is up to us to listen, and you did.

 

Was there a key to that lock? We have a client who asked Jon to look at her Tonsu chest but there's no way we have a key for something like that. He can't take the lock apart to make one either.

 

IIRC she picked the lock! They're not crazy complicated and I bet your husband could get in if the clients is locked. If not I'd tell her to let well enough alone.

 

Bev, No key! So yes, I had to pick the lock. I watched this video that explains how it works.

I stuck two very stiff wires into the keyhole, one was straight, and I bent one like a small hook. I had to simultaneously push one and pull on the other to compress the springs and release the sliding bolt mechanism. Then I had to holler for my husband to slide the button. So it was a 2 person job.
This video was super helpful.

 

Nice piece! ... and a good buy. Seems to have some age to it. I was in San Francisco many years ago and happened to wander across a store that specialized in vintage Japanese furniture. I had never seen so much Japanese furniture at one time. Some of it was pretty pedestrian, made out of pine, but exquisitely made. It was not all that expensive. They also had much more elaborate pieces made of teak or other hardwoods. Had I not been so far from home, something would have gone home with me.

 

Interesting. I'm going to show this to my husband. We did a combination change on her door locks and she asked Jon about this chest and he couldn't do it at the time. She refused to pay the entire invoice even though we went and did the other work. Maybe if Jon goes back and gets it unlocked she'll give us the rest of the money.