Featured Looking for information. Carved wooden chest/box

you will show us of course...??
& not ashamed anymore !!!!

 

Now I'm curious about your purchase. Can we see it?

 

Do any of you have good tips on where I can turn to restore the box without losing its value. @James Conrad @Any Jewelry

 

The only thing i see your box needs is a lock and, it's going to be tough finding one that fits that hole exactly. That would lead to a custom lock built for your box by a locksmith/blacksmith that specializes in old locks, i have no clue how much that would cost but it is not unusual for restoration costs to equal or exceed the value of the piece.

 

Agrees, let's see this now rather famous Friesian box!

 

Fries is a German surname which could have originated in East Friesland, in northern Germany. The Dutch equivalent is de Vries, which is one of the most widespread names in the Netherlands.

You could be related to my mother's best friend, who fled with her parents in the 1930s because her father was an anti-Nazi journalist. When the Germans invaded the Netherlands they showed up on the Fries household doorstep to arrest the father. Too late, their secret service had found out the address, but not that he had passed away 3 yrs earlier.

 

I will not mention her name.

The two boxes will be shipped today. They are small and humble, nothing like the beauties posted here.

These are the seller's photos:
A 'correspondence box', for letters and stamps:


A coffeespoon box, lined with felt at a later date to serve as a jewellery box:


People in the northern Netherlands needed a lot of coffeespoons. They would have coffee brewing all day, much like the Russians have samovars. They prepared a fair amount of coffee in the morning, and with every visitor water would be added to the pot. The first cup would have heart attack strength, the last one of the day would resemble pond water.

 

Very nice! and even though later carving they have that unmistakable Frisian "look" to them.
Map of Friesland

 

Thank you. And they are both antique, though not as old as the other boxes posted here. It was two for the price of one really, so how could I resist.

My parents bought some Frisian carvings in the 60s and 70s to support the craft, but we sold them because the new stuff looks so, uhm, new. I prefer the ones I bought, humble though they are.
But it is great that the craft continues, and it is now officially 'Immaterial Heritage'.

Here is the site of a carver, in Dutch, but the photos give an impression:

https://www.kerfsnede.nl/contact

The proud carver, Erno Korpershoek:

 

Another thing that is worth pointing out, this Frisian inspired chip carving TRAVELED, A LOT! We know it traveled to America because the largest ethnic group in New Amsterdam (now New York City) were Frisian people. And if it traveled here it's a fair bet it traveled all over western europe, it absolutely traveled to Wales.
Check out this box dated June 28, 1660, i don't think i have ever seen a box dated to the day/month/year the way this one is. The Welshman who carved this box THOUGHT he was getting married but something went awry somewhere!

A dealers description of this box

"The desk box is intricately carved on all surfaces, including the interior drawers. It’s wonderful, but the real kicker is on the back -– two interlaced hearts, with the name and date, "Charles Fitzhugh, June 28, 1660.
Chip-carved boxes are thought to have been love or marriage tokens, and the tradition was particularly strong in Wales (as well as in the Friesian Islands off the Netherlands). Fitzhugh is a name of Welsh origin (meaning "son of Hugh"), so we can surmise that Charles was a Welshman, and probably from an important family. (There is a Fitzhugh family who owned a huge estate in Montgomery and Denbighshire from 1596–1921.)
Chip-carving was done by amateurs using the point of a knife -- a tool every young man would have had. Basically, it required three cuts per chip, though many chips on this box would have taken five or six cuts. Typically the quality of the decoration far exceeded that of the form, which is usually fairly simple (this is more sophisticated than most). We can only assume that the time spent chipping out the decoration was a measure of the young man’s love, and in this case, Charles must have been very deeply in love indeed! The precision of the date, June 28, 1660, suggests that he intended the box to commemorate his marriage, but, and here a note of romantic tragedy creeps in, he never carved his beloved’s name in the space he left for it. Did she leave him tearful at the altar? Did her proud father refuse to let her marry the unworthy Charles? Did a jealous rival carry her off at midnight? There’s a tear-jerker of a story lying just under the surface here. What a shame that Shakespeare died half a century earlier; Romeo and Juliet might not have been his last word on the tribulations of young love."

 

One of them might have died. Who knows.

 

Possible, or maybe she said NO?

 

He should have given her a Welsh lovespoon first.

 

lol, oh lord, poor Charles! He's carving away on this box, gets jilted and tosses the box, his carving tools and the hussy who started it all!

 

The drama of it all. Will we ever find out if he found a new love?

 

No, probably not, that is one of the neat things about old furniture, some mysteries will never be answered or solved.

 

You had to ram it home, didn't you. Poor Welsh.

 

Poor Charles, he thought he had put this episode behind him but NO! It comes roaring back to life 3.5 centuries later!

 

"Perhaps the one iconic example of American Frisian carving is this New Jersey spoon rack. This yellow poplar example is dated 1727 and descended in a Bergen County family. It brought a staggering $42,000. USD at Keno auctions in 2011."