My recently purchased inkwell

Hello,

I recently purchased this for £22 i am not sure if i will make profit on it, however its arrived and i must say its very nice.

any additional information from you experts would be great.



thank you,
Adam

 

and why does it say LIGHT in German (LICHT) on top ?

 

Omg I was wondering for the last few days thinking "light" could be the brand name! So mines a Vestacase then? The dealer had it listed as a 1980s inkwell

It looks like both are in similar price ranges and £22 seems to be a good price could make £10-20 profit.

 

Very interesting read about match safes - https://www.antiquestradegazette.com/guides/collecting-guides/vesta-cases/

 

Very nice, m3ltdown.

And didn't you wonder how the ink would stay in place without spilling, and why the top was ribbed?

 

lol so true! i didnt think.

 

It's a matchbox or vesta-case. These were often sold in pairs. Inkwell and vesta-case. Usually for writing-cases or traveling cases when going on journeys. They're more common than you might think. Be worth more if it was the pair. But not much more.

 

what should i list it at?

 

It's tricky to say. They don't sell for much. They're very common and most people only want them if they're in a set.

On top of that, to my knowledge, you can't even buy the matches that these things used anymore. They used old-fashioned friction-matches (You know, the kind you could strike on a brick wall, etc). Modern two-part safety-matches won't work on something like this. So it's mostly a historical curiosity.

People who would buy this would be looking to complete the restoration of a writing-case or traveling case of some kind. In which instance, they won't be paying much for it. $5, $10, $15, 20...not much at all.

People think that because antiques are old, they're worth lots of money. The VAST MAJORITY of antiques are not worth anything at all. Don't let shows like Pawn Stars, or Antiques Roadshow fool you.

 

I guess i paid high end retail price of £22 then.