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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Shangas, post: 30391, member: 360&quot;]What incredible replies...OK here goes...</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>You&#039;re quite right. I&#039;ve traveled extensively around the world and sought out antiques in most places. And prices on some things vary quite significantly. What some people pay hundreds of dollars for back home, they pay nothing for in other places. Supply and demand, interest and understanding and whatnot. </p><p><br /></p><p>The guy I bought the box from, like I said, purchased it at auction. He&#039;d had it sitting in his shop for almost a year and nobody wanted it. So I suppose when he saw the chance for a quick sale, he jumped on it! And yes, Portobello Road is usually VERY expensive! I&#039;ve been there three times and the prices...oy... </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I suspected that something like this was a lot more than just an ordinary writing slope. That it was designed for SERIOUS travels abroad to remote places. Otherwise it wouldn&#039;t have so many bits and pieces on it. As you say, most writing-slopes were quite bland/simple. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t know WHAT is on the silver belt-buckle. I&#039;ve shown it to a lot of people and the responses I get are different for every person. Certainly the Peranakan Chinese saw themselves as BRITISH SUBJECTS (they were called &#039;the King&#039;s Chinese&#039; because of their alignment with the British rather than the Chinese from China) but I doubt that the buckle has any serious political leanings. Something like this would&#039;ve been handmade for the family by-commission. It would NOT have been cheap, and my grandmother wasn&#039;t from a rich family. I suspect that it was mere coincidence. Gran was born in Singapore in 1914. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I can&#039;t be, no. But then, nobody can. There&#039;s precious little about T&amp;G online. VERY little. It was only after a LOT of searching that I even found out what happened to the company. I came across old scanned copies of the London Gazette which gave me the rest of the story. But I use 1862 as the earliest possible date for the box. For all I know it might even be older than that. Or not. We&#039;ll never really know. But there&#039;s no way of saying that it couldn&#039;t be, which is why I set that as its &#039;birthday&#039;.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I took the key to a local locksmith who cuts keys for antiques. He took one look at it and said that it was a Bramah lock. Or at least Bramah-style. But he also said that the key was NOT original to the lock. It looked like something that&#039;d been made after, and that possibly there were two keys at one point. Then one was lost, and the &#039;spare key&#039; was all that was left. </p><p><br /></p><p>One day I do intend to get a second key cut, just in case. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t like to use the term &#039;campaign box&#039;. Mostly because it&#039;s too specific. Writing slope or writing box is a much simpler term. It&#039;s something that more people can relate to. Would this have belonged to a soldier? Probably. </p><p><br /></p><p>But it could also have belonged to a sailor. A diplomat travelling in the jungles of Malaya or deserts of India. The Mandate of Palestine. Australia. Canada. Any part of the British Empire. With antiques, all we have is conjecture, unfortunately.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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