Featured Victorian Butlers Trug.

Thank you, yes I do

 

I'll do that

 

Here you go, just a few of my vintage and antique embroidery threads.

 

Perfect!

 

Beautiful.

I keep thinking it may have held polishing 'stuf' originally, to polish the silver for instance. But it looks so much prettier with your embroidery threads.

 

Thank you
A friend suggested that too, I think it might be one of things that you never really find out what it's purpose was.

 

Here, mostly in the mid 19th century South (particularly Virginia), similar sturdy harness leather baskets, some very fancy, were used by the lady of the house or the housekeeper to hold all the household keys and it would always be kept with her. Not that a 'key basket' was exclusive to that era or area...

~Cheryl

 

Ok, that's worth having a look at, thank you.

 

I found these and they are very similar.....
This might be it

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/secesh1860/southern-key-baskets/?lp=true

 

your idea...rocks too !!!!

 

Was rushed when I wrote that post (and still am), also meant to say you did a lovely job with the lining, the cord and tassels are a nice touch. I managed a high-end luggage and fine gifts shop through most of the '80s and developed a weakness for leather goods...

Years ago (not pre-internet, but before there was so much info), a friend of a friend asked me about one of these that had been in her family for well over a hundred years, stamped with her great-grandmother's name - she was 'Old South', but to the best of my recollection the tradition of a 'key basket' being passed down came from Europe, and were not particularly uncommon in the 19th century, but the leather ones, made by harness-makers, were a southern tradition. Would an English butler perhaps keep the household keys in a basket too?

This link shows one that was lined with fabric, noted as unusual: https://www.christopherhjones.com/key-basket/

This one, similar, though nicer than the one I researched, is in the 'Germanic Objects' of the collection, and suggests the baskets were also prison-made: http://www.janekatchercollection.com/html/keybasket.html

~Cheryl

 

Thank you
That information has been great and I'm convinced now that that's what it was or at least started life as a key basket.
I've never seen one before but now I'll be keeping out an eye for another one

 

Poisonivy's container gave me a GREAT idea!

My little bedside table, along with a plant, a telephone, and a lamp, contains at night: a bottle of water, a jar of hand cream, a small clock, a box of tissues, a bottle of asprin, my personal phone book, and whatever book I am reading that day.

Needless to say, in the dead of the night, it is likely that I will knock off the clock when I am reaching for the water, or lose the asprin in the plant tendrils.

NO MORE! I now have a lovely little basket, with all the goodies therein, on the floor between the table and bed, and it's covered with a lovely square of blue velvet!

Thanks, Poison!

 

What a nice idea.
You're welcome

 

This is really just so lovely -- I keep coming back to this thread to admire.

 

And...my TV clicker, and my reading glasses... Slides under the bed during the day, but if I were to forget, it won't look like hell in a handbasket.

Couldn't resist a wee pun!

 

Thank you