Birdseye Maple turned wood lidded container - is it antique? Beehive form?

We are researching this turned wood lidded container that arrived recently and have a few questions. One is the age of the piece - does it look like an antique? Also, I see other pieces with somewhat similar shapes described as having a beehive form, and I wonder if that applies to this one as well?

The container is about 8-3/4 inches in diameter and about 5 inches high. The weight is just under 1-1/2 pounds. The 2 halves need to be oriented properly to fit together properly. The underside has some pencil markings, but I don't see enough of anything to make sense of them.

Any info is appreciated. Thank you! ... Dave

 

Could be a commercially made item, but could also be a home craftsperson, anyone with a lathe. My uncle loved to make things like this, from 1950 to 1990.....

 

Any guesses Steve as to what it would have been used for?

 

?

 

No idea, sorry.

 

I took the snake out before taking the pictures!

 

If it's slightly ovoid it was likely hand turned.
I collected treenware back in the 70s and I remember boxes like this most often referred to as sugar bowls/boxes but also as tobacco or soap boxes.

 

I didn't notice it at first, but it was very obvious when trying to fit the halves back together the wrong way.

 

ointment bowl?

 

Because it is painted black inside, my first thought was Asian rice bowl. In checking google, I found a couple, one was listed as a Dowry bowl.

Are we sure that is birds eye maple?
@verybrad

 

Looks more like some type of burl and not birds eye maple.

 

Is there some writing in the upper end of the red box I made or is it just an optical illusion?????

 

I thought so too, but what do I know

 

Definitely maple with some birds-eyes in there but more like burl overall. The reason the top only fits a certain way is due to shrinkage over time. Wood shrinks differentially between length and width, causing what was once a true circle to become slightly oval. Some round boxes intentionally use this to create a locking feature. The top may lock in place if turned slightly.

 

Yes, and this is true of both hand-turned and commercially made lathe-turned boxes or lidded bowls. The effect is greater over time, and greatest when the wood was very green when turned. So a very old item may be very oval, a new one only slightly so; one made from very green wood may go out-of-round very quickly, while one made from very dry wood may be almost stable for a considerable time.
The effect also depends somewhat on where in the tree the wood came from; one can reduce the effect by aligning the center of the wood-blank with the original center of the tree's grain pattern. This however produces a turned item showing very uninteresting grain, because the growth rings coincide with the circumference of the item.

 

I went back and checked that area with a magnifying glass, but it just looks like a small series of vertical impressions. So often, I'll see a blown up view of something and think I see writing, but checking shows nothing - the brain wants to create order out of the disorder. Especially true when there is a lot of fine random detail.