Featured Trunk

Curious to know more about this trunk I saw for sale... Haven’t seen one like it before. Not sure if it’s antique or decorative and beat to hell but it looks relatively old. I don’t have better photos of the hardware unfortunately.

 

Doesn't look like a "trunk" to me. Trunks normally are top-opening, not side-opening. But do you have dimensions?

 

@James Conrad
@Ghopper1924

 

I used trunk for lack of knowing a better word. Chest I guess is better. Cabinet? No dimensions. It is inside an SUV in photos so it’s pretty large.

 

I'm interested to hear about it.

 

This cabinet first of all reminds me of Pa Dutch designs. I will guess what the cabinet is for. 1rst guess would be a dowry box that probably went on some type of stand. Just my guess of course.

 

Nice find, J. It is a chest from the Swat Valley, in the Pakistan/Afghanistan border region. It needs a bit of tlc, otherwise it looks good.
Here is a more elaborate one, there could be slight regional differences:

 

Hi AJ. That is really pretty. Just wanted to know what the little side latch is for. Is it a locking mechanism?

 

It could be a locking mechanism, but I couldn't say for sure. I do know they are all different.
I used to see a lot here in the 70s and 80s, always liked them, but never really took a closer look.

 

That was my immediate thought as far what I knew of that I could compare it to as well. Overall I was guessing Africa or Middle East.

 

Cool thanks AJ! It was weighing on my curiosity. I actually thought it looked African or Middle Eastern a bit. Any idea if they were bringing good prices when you would see them around? I can’t imagine this one would be a hot seller but I like it.

 

Anyone care to take a stab at its age? I would guess around 100 years or so but could be more or less easily.

 

Yeah, pretty beat up, I doubt the top is original.
Guesses this is assembled from parts of various pieces, very little value.

 

I'd guess it's vintage, in this case ca. 50 years old. Beaten up, as James noted. Nice catch @Any Jewelry!

 

Figured that was probably the case. Around here big wooden trunks/chests sell poorly for whatever reason. This one having a heavy patina surely wouldn’t sell quickly. It would have to be someone that knew what it was and valued that which could take forever on the local sales sites. That or it would sit in my basement for storage. Glad I didn’t jump on buying, just on learning something new.

 

For anyone who like me knew nothing of the Swat valley this is an interesting, quick, easy, and informative article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...b8ac96-eeaa-11e4-8050-839e9234b303_story.html

Batman tshirts and Beiber haircuts! Progress is good but it’s too bad it’s in the form of Fast & Furious. Funny what is quintessentially western to those in the east.

 

Where is around there? On this chest, the seller TURNED DOWN an offer of 35k a couple of weeks ago. So I would say, kinda depends on which chest we are talking about.
Your chest is just so "rough", hard for me to imagine someone placing it in their living room. I'd say you did well passing this one by.

Seller refused 35k offer on this 1786 chest a couple weeks ago

 

If you're asking about the piece of wood on the right in AJ's picture, it is a handle that you grab to slide the door of the chest open. Dagger's link opens at the top, and looks like the original top to me (missing hinges).

In the US, I think someone imported some container loads in the 1990's, because that's when I saw them here. There was a shop in Bar Harbor, ME that had a room full of Swat furniture - chests like in your pic, chairs (that only sat a few inches from the floor) and beds, also low to the floor and strung with gut. I looked at them up close, and they had a good bit of age in the 90's, so I would put many of them from the mid-19th to early-20th century. It is true that these are folk pieces in traditional styles, so similar are still being built, but construction has changed today, and by in large these older pieces are real antiques and not reproductions.

I love the over the top carvings on some of them. Which is how they are used today - designer pieces to make a statement in a room. Not really functional (big empty box).

As to James's link, that one is all about original paint. Strip the paint and you're talking a couple hundred dollars and hard to sell. And unfortunately a fair number of these have been stripped or repainted over the years.

 

Well yes there are obviously many exceptions. That one is a beaut! I sell online locally to Jo Schmos, not at high end auction houses. More talking about big brown boxes in the sub $500 category, and often far below that. I imagine that when I find an early American gem with original paint it won’t be a hard sell anywhere. I will often see an attractive 19th chest or trunk for sale and people are having a hard time getting $10-$20 for them. Obviously not big money antiques but just nice, well made storage options. Nobody seems to want them. I figured this one would suffer the same fate. They sell as well as ketchup lollipops do to ladies wearing white gloves.

Edit: last line courtesy of my father.