Out of the kitchen and into the electronics collection:
While I’d love to brag about the Spectra Physics (big laser company in Silicon Valley) latched hardwood box I store all of my optical bench components in, there’s one that’s even better.
At a local flea market I espied this nice blond hardwood box with chrome snap latches at each end. It’s about half the size of an ordinary shoe box. I opened the box to inspect it and was stunned to find it completely stocked with architectural grade Kooh-I-Noor precision plotting pens. It also has some of the adaptor mounts and cleaning fluids as well.
When this kit was new, it came along with your $10-20K large Calcomp flatbed plotter. These old computing workhorses were used to plot maps and other high density graphics. I’m sure the kit originally sold for between $100-200. The complete price, delivered to me, Ralph Icebag, by a brown shoed square in the dead of night: All of $6.[sup]00[/sup]
My coolest box would have to be one i made last christmas. It was about 8 inches long, an oblong octagon, about 4 inches high. i stained it with a…walnut stain, i believe. I ended up giving it to a SUPER hot girl. Oh well. i can always make more. plus, i got a hug out of the deal.
I’m a Container Freak. I like wooden boxes most of all. I have (pause to count) six cool wooden boxes, plus a couple of others, including an enamel box dated 1897 that was given to my Step-Grandfather by the Captain of his ship.
I have two wooden ??? with slide-out boxes (I have no clue what to call this). I keep my magic supplies in them. Hand-made and rough, they have a simple elegance about them.
There is also a computer disk box that my brother made me when I was 12. Size of a shoe-box (5.25 floppies) and made of poplar with mahogany shims in the corners. After I got rid of my Apple IIc it became my secret storage box, eventually graduating to the bedside toy and protection box the missus and I used until we moved to Prague. Now it sits alone in a cardboard box waiting for our return to the US.
Oooh, boxes!!! I am a box collecting freak. I had no idea there were so many fellow box collectors on the SD. I should have known though.
My favorite box is a small dovetailed wooden one that I found in an antique store for $5. It is intricately carved on all 4 sides and the top with an ivy pattern and has an ivory inlay of a flower in the center of the lid.
I also have a tiny little wooden box that is painted green with a small bird on the lid. It’s so tiny that coins or rings won’t even fit inside. I have no idea what it was used for other than for decoration.
Have no idea what it was. This was a dozen years ago; I never got a look at the mainframe but the software was copyrighted in the early- to mid-70s. I should be able to at least identify the brand of terminal I was on if I could find a pic.
A tiny little round jewel box that my aunt brought me back from Poland. It’s a dark stained wood (wine colored), with a flower design carved on the top and the name of the village where my great-grandfather was born on the bottom, and the year. Szceawnica 1998, if anyone’s interested.
I took a woodwork class in college and made two boxes out of exotic hard woods. One has an orange hue, and I never finished my plan to carve the top. The other was given as a gift to a friend, and I still see it there. These are my coolest because I made them. I’m impressed with the collectors above!
I have 2, both have been in my mother’s family for years.
One is a chest really, about 3 foot long by 18 inches deep by 18 inches high, made from Australian Kauri Pine. Its has heavy iron handles on each end and a huge lock and really cool gothic type hinges inside. It belonged to my great grandfather (or maybe great great grandmother) and is from about 1860, and lurked for many years in the spare bedroom at my parents house under a padded sanderson linen top with a modest skirt. I noticed the handles one day and discovered a treasure.
The other is a document box, about 18inches by 9inches by 6 inches high, made from Australian Red Cedar, with original brass fittings. Its about the same vintage as the pine chest.
I trreasure them both because of their family history and because they look so good.
I have a small collection of enema boxes from the 1800-1900 period. They are made out of oak, some with lables inside, or even the equipment itself. They are getting harder and harder to find. I also collected the small Lane boxes the furniture stores gave out to young girls for promotions. They are neat because the style changed over the years and they all have the name and address of the store inside of them. Yeah I’m a box geek, my wife thinks it is Freudian.
My favorite wooden box came from the Thomas Edison estate in Florida. It’s about 4 inches long, and about 2.5 inches high, irregularly shaped. Made of ficus. If the folks at the gift shop at the estate are to be believed, it is made of wood from a fig tree that Edison himself cut down because it became too large for the property.
But some day, I will have a wooden box to own forever. Hubby and I are searching dilligently for a largish piece of land to buy (minimum 15 acres), and have agreed that he will make my coffin himself, out of hardwood from our land. This may sound macabre to some, but my religion specifies a coffin made of crystal or a fine hardwood, and there’s something kinda cool about the idea of him making it for me.
Your math is pretty good. The stack of them probably makes an eight foot cube (at least). Nearly the entire collection resides in my basement, stored in a bazillion identical Maxtor disk drive cardboard shipping boxes. I’ve already seen some of the ones I’ve gotten for free selling at $5.[sup]00[/sup] on eBay. I’m hoping the collection will fund some other future project.
Enema boxes? Yeah, your wife may have a point, ya know. Although, I must admire your courage in delurking just to share with us about your enema box collection.
I too collect the small Lane Chests. They show up in the thrift shops for a few dollars each and I can never resist them.
One of my coolest cigar boxes is made of beautiful natural finish flame grain mahogany that was issued to celebrate a Brazillian presidential election. I have Havana boxes that say 5¢ inside. I also have a Royal Jamaican wooden box for Churchill ring size cigars that’s as big as two shoeboxes side-by-side.
