PLEASE HELP
This is a Caste Brass Pointed Oval Container of some kind. It is plain accept the lid steps up in three single beveled tiers (the hump of the bevel running length wise between points). The lid over bite an inside lip by 1/4 of an inch. all of the edges are smooth to the touch. it has a flat bottom with no feet. The brass is the same age in appearance (about...
a shade or two lighter) as my 1838 Ford No.625 tire pump's brass cylinder does. So it looks aged about right for the date (which I talk about a little further down). Especially with a few nicks scratches and dings (very light and expected from use over the years...you don't notice them as negatives unless your really looking for them).
It has a single central hinge in the back. (two of the rings on the lid and one on the body...a 3 ring hinge all as part of the casting and not welded or brazed on).
It is marked on the bottom with N. Y. (spaced apart following a bit of an invisible arch in their layout) As well as 1859 Directly under that... And nothing else.
I looked at it under a lighted loop. The markings are not made by a modern engraver as there are none of those tell tale-dots and it is too perfect with no bur lines to be push engraving.
I cut a 6th guitar string with a razor to mark the depth and width of the markings all the characters are the same depth and relative widths in their lines.
They have the same color within the depression and surrounding it as well (so I believe they were set with a similar tool one right after the other as apposed to on put on years later).
The pin in the hinge is probably replaced. It is iron, and makeshift compared to the rest of it. and it is thin enough that there is a good amount of play in any direction in the hinge (it looks like a piece of fencing wire).
At first the inside seemed to have residual glue from a once installed liner. But, upon closer inspection it it nodes from casting surrounded by oxidization of the zinc in the alloy.
The date still bothers me, as to me the box looks like simplistic Art Deco.
I don't know what someone would put in such a container. it has no lock or latch for a lock. You wouldn't put anything non preservable in brass or jewelry i would think. Not bare brass any way?
it doesn't have a shape that is accommodating that i can think of accept maybe bullets standing on end (It actually looks like a perfect bin for .22 center fires. But, again wouldn't it have a latch an owner could put a lock on if that were the case?).
It is 5 inches long, by 3 /12 inches wide and deep at it's largest outside measurements.
The body is a 1/16 of an inch thick. and it weighs 10.3 ounces.
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