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peteshlagor
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I'm guessing a watchmakers tool box
fka (formerly known as) blue
Beats me.
Possible tiny insight. The box was obviously crafted for some very specific purpose by its maker.
It may well have been made up of "parts on hand", therefore the key lock may have been installed simply to secure the cover for the small drawers and prevent them from sliding out and spilling their contents rather than for security reasons.
After all, how much security can you gain on a small box which could easily be hauled away and broken open later?
Jim
Never underestimate the value of a sharp pencil or good light.
Pete,
How about a combined function.
Looks to me as if the piece was made to carry 3 different , say , herbs / medicines/chemicals and provide a clean place to cut and mix them together .
I agree, medicinal or opiate processing. I'd bet it is 1850 ish, I have stumbled across similar relics of the like when I was wood chipping at Colonial Williamsburgh, but much more crude.
Opium and sulfer were the "go to" drugs, and often mixed with the bark/cambrium of willow ( salasylic acid , asprin) . The box being "fruitwood" attests to it's wanting to be chemically inert. So as to not contaminate it's contents with tannins or oils.
Treenware was commonly crafted from Apple, and Pear, due to that possible influx of undesirables in the concoction of tinctures and poultice. Tannin was both a curse and savior, carbonized it made lye ( still does) and raw it acts as an oxidizer in acid form converting free ferrous molecules into ferric oxide ( rust) of which pigments can be obtained, and when mixed with lard became a simple "Drawing Salve", which in turn, became "Black Salve" by substituting pine tar resin.
Added #### in the later mixes caused an ammoniactic conversion to balance the Ph, and make it more user friendly on open wounds.
If ya ever find yerself stove up with a major wound, burn some oak, pee in the ashes, and strain through willow bark, snag some rosin, heat it and make a paste..it 'll keep the flies from maggotting...and if ya cant find a morning glory or poppy, you can be one right happy cripple. LOL
Ed: OK, so U R I N E is a bad word now? geeze us H cow, what the hell has happened here?
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"If you want something you've never had, do something you've never done"
Edited 10/13/2007 11:32 am ET by Sphere
I was thinking it looked pretty much like a 'snake-oil' doctor's rig. The way you explain it, lends a bit more respectability to it than just 'snake-oil'. As for the censor...It is becoming ridiculous. A joke. Doesn't SOMEONE realize what a laughing stock they are making of Taunton ? It certainly doesn't promote a sense of professionalism...
Yeh... That'll work.
< so U R I N E is a bad word now?>
On a scale of one-to-ten, U R I N A T E.
Forrest
No, I am Innate but if you say it to me.............Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"If you want something you've never had, do something you've never done"
But i'd give your assinine!
Rended me speechless ya did..LOL
That was good.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"If you want something you've never had, do something you've never done"
Who is Nate ?
Yeh... That'll work.
Apparently the guy who ate Sphere.
Guess he'll have to change his name to Sphereinate...
Yeh... That'll work.
did say it had a srceen in the bottom of one compartment...
i would guess it could be a small parts keeper/cleaner which would go along with the watchmaker idea... i've been around jewelers and watchmakers all my life and come from many generations of same last name even reflects it... and i've seen tools that only the maker would know the use or fuction which i'm sure would be true of all trades where someone has an idea of what would help them for a repeated task
p
<last name even reflects it... >
"Pony", or "tail"?
Forrest
It is an ancient marijuana box!
The top drawer (door) is where the weed actually goes.
The side drawers is where the roach clip and papers for rolling the weed goes.
:)
Would make a good one!
Not that I do that stuff anymore.
My DH wears the pants in the family. But I control the zipper!
Not that I do that stuff anymore.
or any less?
p
Iknew someone would come back with that.
The answer to the daily double is ............at all. Quit when my 1st son was born.
My DH wears the pants in the family. But I control the zipper!
Yeah, my two guesses would be a jig of some sort, or a container for some sort of drug (or possibly even tobacco/snuff).
If a jig, it probably isn't for watchmaking since there would be signs of some sort of hold-down clamp. But its mass and the small drawers suggests something along those lines.
For drugs the possibilities are wide open, though the drawers would have to be adequately explained by any more specific answer.
Would need a better description and/or more detailed pictures to tell much more.
(Actually, there's a slight chance that it's a spice box. The larger metal bin for salt or sugar, the smaller drawers for other spices.)