Featured Antique,vintage Chinese Box or not,any ideas ?

I picked up this wood (rosewood ?) & brass Chinese box yesterday for a few bucks.As w/ all things internet-prices are all over the map (but w/ these thing crazily so).It's 7 3/4" L,by 3 3/4" W by 3 3/4" H.
I assume they still make them-any idea of the age on this one ?
Thanks very much.

 

JMHO, newish, not rosewood, BWDIK!

 

Thanks Marjorie-prices are insanely all over the cyber map.IDLMLMTM !
PS-Translation,'It Does Look More Like Mahogany To Me'-but I def aint an expert in Chinese woodwork.

 

Ditto.

Not mahogany either. Stained something-or-other wood imo.

Very useful for your budding jewellery business.

 

a little overboard on the metal.....but I like the bats !!

 

AJ-I laugh abt my budding jewelry business too,i opened shop 50 years too late.It is fun to learn a bit about a new field though.
Let's call an expert about the wood identification- @verybrad .
PS-These boxes are common as hens teeth,mostly I was intrigued by these insane prices (so thought I'd post it).I figured they generally went for $20-$50.Here's some recent bonkers prices-
https://www.ebay.com/itm/225318666893
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1529459046/vintage-chinese-wood-lacquered-jewellery
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1432976941/antique-chinese-hongmu-rosewood-and

 

Here's some more Bats Komo-

 

Sometimes of camphor wood but this looks like some kind of plantation hardwood.

 

Thanks Brad.

 

I think these were made in Hong Kong in the 1970's-1980's.

 

I think you nailed it.I was trying to figure some types (age,wood type ?) went for so much.Of course there's no shortage of outrageous absurd 'asking' prices online for just about anything.

 

Could also be stained elm. I have some camphor pieces and they have a distinct odor. Usually the Chinese trunks were lined or built out of camphor to keep the bugs out.

 

They were made much earlier than that, and they're probably still made. I remember seeing them in the 1960s with Made in China labels, so those were not from Hongkong, which was still British at the time.

The style, of dark wood with brass bats and butterflies, is that of Shanghai, but in the late 19th-early 20th century many Shanghai furniture manufacturers went to Hongkong. So these boxes could have been made in Hongkong as well as Shanghai.

Aren't the camphor wood boxes a lighter colour and carved, like the camphor wood blanket chests?

 

Yes, but think it was also used for boxes like this in the past. As I said, the dark wood makes me think a plantation hardwood.

Edit: I think you are right about the carving. I am finding very little camphor wood boxes that are not carved.

 

I've seen buckets of cheap ones over the years.Maybe the pricier ones are actual 19th century stamped rosewood pieces (or greedy idiots ?).

 

Couldn't think of the other Chinese wood often used when I suggested camphor. Earlier boxes like this were more likely hongmu, actually a number of species often identified and marketed in the West as rosewood.

 

I take it you mean earlier than this one?

 

Yes. I still think this one later and of some other plantation hardwood. Possibly toona sinensis.

Toona sinensis - Wikipedia

 

Yes, this one is probably 1970s, thereabouts.

 

Thanks much all.Just the Chinese repeating the same forms & motifs decade after decade (like porcelain,etc.),