doublegunshop.com - home Forums Thread Like Summary - Joined Oak Box ID Help

I bought this box at auction last week. The top is quartersawn oak, the bottom is nailed on, and the sides are joined with hand-cut dovetails. There is a lock on the front for which I have no key.

The measurements are roughly 7x13" and about 3" deep

I'm posting here hoping someone has an idea about the original purpose of this box.

(Edit: I found some info on dates: it seems that W. Richards produced guns at his Tithebarn Street address between 1907 and 1917.)

Best Quality donut box.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Ted

I'm going with cookie box, looks like it might have had a false floor, really important if you don't want 'em squishing each other. It's got the handcut dovetails, but expedited appearing lid and floor? Maybe, someone's gramps made themselves up a neato box? Happy Thanksgiving all.

I considered that, but I have a hard time seeing it. Most cartridge boxes I've seen are designed for the shells to lay on their side.

would they go upright like in the one picture? (other pictures for size reference)

Lloyd3 has a W. Richards boxlock ejector that is well above par. Nice long length of pull and the stock bent for a lefty, which, I once was. Having to shoot off the right shoulder has cured the lust I felt handling that old gun, but, you are correct, a fine gun maker, indeed.

Best,
Ted

If it were a cartridge box, it should have straps and handles. My guess is that it may have displayed something that W. Richards sold, possibly not a gun, but gun related. Oak was probably. Used circa 1850 or so. I have a very fine W. Richards double rifle. Circa 1865, it is cased in mahogany,

I reckon it is a cartridge box, with 49 in each half. Possibly used to top up the usual box that held 250.
They would all have been placed shot down, primer upwards for faster reloading by your loader.

HB

You may be pleasantly surprised. As long as there are landlords and last wills and testaments, there will be real locksmiths. And making an uncomplicated key from the age of steam was a bagatelle for the guy I went to. The lockworks on your box look to be of the same basic design and age as the one I had finagled.

Obviously, the box is simply an early version of this:



Way back when, many items were packed and shipped in wooden boxes that would be considered too costly, too wasteful, and too labor intensive today. Guys could order guns through the mail, and they would be shipped direct from the factory or dealer in a wooden box. Milk and soda pop was delivered in wooden crates. Fruit and other produce came in wooden boxes. I keep some of my chisels and checkering tools in wooden cigar boxes that were fairly well made, and cost only a buck or two.

I suppose that someday in the future, if guns and forums like this still exist, someone may post a Thread here to speculate what might have been shipped in this Amazon box. It probably wasn't a gun, because the box is not lost or damaged beyond recognition.

I believe the pieces you are seeing are simply there to hold the center divider in place, without having to cut a rabbet in the front and back.



(HistoricBore, you can see that I can fit 7 shells if they are alternating. Not so if they are all heads or tails up.)

There are also screws on the front and back faces to keep the divider from falling out:



[url=https://ibb.co/LvYbKsG]]


I see no signs of other partitions and I don't think it's nearly big enough to hold pistols, unless they were very small.

Just purely fun guessing. By era, I think the boards were machine planed? The box lid, to me, is a problem. I am still guessing it's a later repair, not only because of the split, but it might not have been laying flat. The rigid cross grain gluing in the rabbet is not so good, but no doubt it works in this case. I think the rabbet was used to retain the original top, I'm still guessing repair, so that the lid still functioned at its original thickness.

The reason I leaned towards thinking utilitary construction, is because the lid doesn't follow wood movement rules. Back to strips attached inside the lid, rather than in rabbets. Maybe, it was a relatively tight squeeze between the sides and the hinges, maybe it might have been too bulky to close on the intended contents? Yes, I noticed the layout lines. The pins might be safe width at the top and bottom, where the piece might have had better visual balance if they were more proportional to the center pin? Again, just some guessing out loud, seeing what story it might tell, not picking on the box. Take care.

You can pretty much date the box by the nails that they used. I believe they stopped using square nails around the 1890s or so in furniture. So, I would date the box before the 1890s.