Featured Looking for ideas / info about old box

Looking for any ideas / info about this box.

I bought this recently on eBay. I would've left it alone but I could just make out from the listing's photos that the wood is actually, I think, a really very nice birds eye maple.

Any ideas about the way the box is decorated? Is this kind of design traditional?

I'm guessing that it's American and from the first third of the 20th century - but I could easily be off...

The box measures about 10.75” x 8” and just under 6” tall.

The box has a fairly primitive construction (put together with nails.) It appears that it once had four feet - now missing.

An odd thing is that the lock is off center by almost half an inch.

I'm planning to clean this up just a bit and to re-glue it, but I won't restore it to death.
Thanks for any help!

 

Nice photo's......... thank you !!

to me the box is bench made.....home made .... not anything by a cabinet maker or wood worker.

are there any marks on the lock?

 

your thoughts on the wood and dating sound reasonable.

 

Looks rather like birdseye maple. In the UK we tend to call this shed art, primitive or sometimes tramp art (although tramp art does also have a specific form).

 

I thought of tramp art.....but it doesn't seem to reach that level..

 

Might even have been a school woodworking class project.

Debora

 

No marks that I can see on the lock - though maybe something will be revealed when I clean off some of the rust.

This certainly isn't the work of a professional. I wonder if the style and use of materials is a one off, or if it might come from a specific folk tradition.

 

I have no idea why the lock would be off center............

 

I've sometimes wondered about the tens of thousands of wooden boxes that were produced in over a century of highschool woodshop courses.
I don't think this would be one of them - only because I can't imagine that an unskilled student would be working with good maple. But it's possible.

 

This is a nice Tramp Art 3some.




Studded boxes are known......but usually involve other metal hardware ....

Your keyhole....doesn't even show a metal plate....

Seller calls it Farm Handmade.........I'll go with that....fer now !!

 

so much for my pics........

 

It's beautiful wood. I quite like it. I wonder if the box wasn't somehow twisted at some point and that has thrown everything off kilter. I think whoever made it would have been justifiably pleased with the result.

 

I was able to see the pics when I hit Reply. I recognize the Tramp Art. This box was also listed as "Farm Handmade" on eBay.

 

I was able to see the pics when I hit Reply. I recognize the Tramp Art. This box was also listed as "Farm Handmade" on eBay.

 

yes....sorry...I was talking about your box.....on Ebay !

 

Thanks. I do like it too. I'm a sucker for birds eye maple.

 

the other metal stud box was said to be early 1900's.....