Featured A bit of fun, can you guess what this is?

Sorry not balance scales

 

Nothing inside now and wasn't made to hold bottles

 

Yes..... that's cheating lol but we all jump on Google when we are unsure, I suppose my point is if you had seen it on a ebay listing would you have taken the time to look it up? or would you have passed it by?

 

Sorry not military

 

"Some sort of strong box" this is along the right lines yes it does have a lock but not one that would withstand any sort of prolonged attack but the contents were valuable (clue)

 

I would have looked to find out what it was.
When are you going to put us out of our misery and tell us what it is

 

Ok so there were a few who didn't spoil the fun but knew within minutes of me posting and messaged me, so a big thumbs up to them for knowing.
It is a Antique Malabar South India Dowry box c 1790-1810 made from rosewood, the top is carved from one piece of wood and yes I was very pleased to get it for £30 including P&P I was very shocked when my final bid (which was far more then £26) went from the current bid of £24 to my final bid of £26+ £4 P&P...Very shocked it wasn't spotted by others in one of the most viewed categories (antique boxes)

 

I would never have guessed! Sounds like you got a great deal on it
This has been fun, thanks for posting it!

 

Dowry boxes are new to me. Very interesting.

 

What a great find, thanks for posting, I had fun reading through all of the comments!

 

Bingo! Also what I found by searching "19th century wood brass box" -- but positively needed Google. Fun contest. These were new to me as well.

Just curious, certainly looks like it has some real age, but how can you tell it is from 1790-1810? The type of wood or style, or something?

 

Unless they are modern fakes these boxes weren't made after that time, sometimes even antique people wrongly date them to later like this example where it says 20th c http://www.saffronart.com/fixedantique/WorkDetails.aspx?iid=35827&pt=2&eid=3586

 

You can easily tell the difference from a fake to a real one, here's a fake https://www.chairish.com/product/524444/wood-malabar-dowry-box