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Message:: [QUOTE="Jeff Drum, post: 2995667, member: 6444"]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.[/QUOTE]