Thank you for pointing this seller out, @HR_pufnsnuff - I have put a bid in on a Guernsey box by him. Add me to the tweed and corduroy brigade, by the way, and consider the brown felt lifted in your direction!
Justin old chap - by any chance did you win that Guernsey 8 Doubles box? I was quite tempted to bid but resisted the urge in case one of us ended up costing the other a lot of money. Update on mine - still haven’t tried a plain snuff in it, but Royal George and then Lemon Grove stayed untainted by any smell of copper, and I can’t smell any on my hands either. The bright colour has now darkened to a standard copper coin shade, but because it spends it’s time in my pocket being polished by movement as opposed to rattling around with other coins it is still shiny and looks beautiful. As the lid and base are quite a tight fit I’ll be resisting the urge to put any moist snuff in just in case it jams them together. The next snuff going in will probably be WoS IHT 22, or GH (Kendal) Irish D.
Good evening, Gentlefolk I have tried using quite a moist homemade snuff in my own George V, 1936 snuff box with very positive results. No clogging up, no nasty smell, no jamming, keeps the snuff nicely moist. I sent the maker - a Gentleman from Wales - two uncirculated pennies from 1953, ER II’s coronation year, the first with her portrait. He is now making a similar snuffbox for me, with these two coins. I also bought the commemorative Russian Ruble he put up on Ebay last week. I wonder what will come up next, gold doubloons, Mongolian tugrik, Swiss five franc pieces (Fünfliber), Vatican Euros? Very fine handicraft, by the way, almost seamless an clean soldering, no glue used. By the way, my fellow chaps from the tweed and corduroy brigade, may I draw your attention to the english clothes designer, Nigel Cabourn? His wares come very close to the ideal … So, with your gracious permission, I shall now retire to more private activities, with best regards Patrick B. Ludwig
Good evening, Gentlefolk I have tried using quite a moist homemade snuff in my own George V, 1936 snuff box with very positive results. No clogging up, no nasty smell, no jamming, keeps the snuff nicely moist. I sent the maker - a Gentleman from Wales - two uncirculated pennies from 1953, ER II’s coronation year, the first with her portrait. He is now making a similar snuffbox for me, with these two coins.
I say Ludwig old chap, a bespoke snuffbox service - now that’s rather splendid. I agree, the workmanship is very good; as I believe Mr Eric Morecambe was prone to say “You can’t see the join”.
…with your gracious permission, I shall now retire to more private activities, with best regards Patrick B. Ludwig
You’re not by any chance building your own Medium Size Hadron Collider as featured in the latest edition of The Chap , are you? I shall listen out for a bang… Yours etc, Pufnsnuff.
Justin old chap - by any chance did you win that Guernsey 8 Doubles box? I was quite tempted to bid but resisted the urge in case one of us ended up costing the other a lot of money.
@HR_pufnsnuff No, I missed that one. Kind of you to hold back, though! I bought a George VI penny one in the end - I have always rather liked his coin portrait - and it is indeed a lovely box. Easier to use than I expected, and no hint of copper taste so far.
What spiffing company to be found here! I extend a hearty handshake and gentle peck on the cheek for all you Chaps ( and Chapesses). Lady Snuff.
Well, how do you do, Lady Snuff - please, take my seat. I’ll just take up a gentlemanly lounging position adjacent to the cocktail bar, here. Care for a snifter?
Good afternoon, @HR_pufnsnuff I suspect you are referring to the more private activities I was retiring to. But no, sorry to disappoint you, old fellow.The homemade hadron collider is tempting, but CERN is so near to where I live that it is just not worth the effort. I’d just pop over after office hours. More important however is, that I am mathematician and not a physicist. Meaning, that I tend to shift numbers on paper and not boxes on lab floors. Dear @LadySnuff I am delighted to meet such a dashing companion snuffer, and of the opposite gender to boot. You must let me know when you are in Switzerland next time, I would love to have you for afternoon tea and a nice sniff. Would an estate Darjeeling and some F&T Morlaix accomodate your undoubtedly refined taste? By the way, is Chapess really the feminine version of chap? I seem to vaguely remember the term ‘Chaperone’ … , the Lady I was far more interested in than my female peers many years ago. Best regards Patrick B. Ludwig
@HR_pufnsnuff and @Ludwig_1954 Thank you gentleman I have today been unable to resist and have ordered one of those Penny Snuff boxes from said gentleman in Wales. Photo to follow when it arrives.
VERY nice! I have got to get me one of those. I’m not into tap boxes myself, but I bet you could drill a hole in the side of this and use it as one if you were so inclined. Twist the lid until the holes line up to dispense, then twist it back to close. It would be useful to have an alternative means of getting snuff out of the box on a windy day…
Blast and botheration, gentlemen. I’m supposed to be restraining my expenditures in preparation for a voyage overseas, and then you go and wave this in my visage…I suppose a few days on a diet of thin gruel will iron out this minor budgetary crease!
Well today, I was tidying a closet and I found some 1" plumbing pipe and a straight connector to match. I have some old predecimal pennies that my mom gave me last time I went to visit her in England, so I decided to have a go at making one of these boxes. Although ‘dapping’ the pennies to make them domed wouldn’t be too difficult, I decided to keep them flat because I thought it would be better that way for snuff use. I used lead free plumbing solder and a pipe cutter, and a few minutes later I had a snuff box very similar to this one. I’m not going to post instructions or pictures, as I don’t want to ‘pirate’ this guy’s work. also, if I didn’t already have all the materials, it would have cost more to buy them than to just buy a box from him. Councidentally, I also used 1936 pennies
Good work, @doctorbeat. I received one of these boxes in the post today, and it is very well-made, and very heavy overall. I think the domed shape is fine still for snuff, you just have to make sure you don’t over-fill.
I may still buy one, as although I have enough pipe and pennies to make quite a few of these, I can’t be bothered to make a tool to dome the pennies just to make one or two boxes. I think the domed effect looks spectacular and makes these boxes unique. It’s good to know that the domed shape won’t be too much of a hassle snuff-wise. I also don’t want to ‘waste’ any more of my pennies. They have no collector’s value, but my mom had them since she was a kid.
Question - how strong is the overall construction, solder being the choice bonding? I would like to hope that it’s not likely to come apart, but would be happier if it had been micro-welded.
Extremely strong, in the order of 2-3 times the psi rating of strong epoxy. A soldered joint can last for centuries without deterioration, too. There’s no way a properly soldered box of this construction would let go under normal use. If you applied enough force to rip the joint apart, you’d also be applying enough force to completely mangle the copper parts as well. Micro welding is well outside the scope of the hobbyist or small scale manufacturer, and wouldn’t really be worth the hassle since soldering is more than strong enough for an application like this. To be honest, the thing I would be most worried about is dropping the lid on a hard surface. If the lip of the lid got dented, it would be very difficult to bend it back accurately enough that it would still fit properly. On the box that I made, and presumably on the ones being sold on ebay, the lid fits so snugly that you can feel the air pressure when removing and replacing the lid. The tolerances are so tight that a dent could be really disastrous, but the metal is thick enough that you’d have to be pretty unlucky to damage it enough to render it unusable. Bottom line: if you’re careful not to dent it, it will outlast you.
Yes, you can certainly feel some resistance when you push the lid back onto the box so the fit is very close, as the good doctor says if you dented part of it when open you’d have a hell of a job sorting it out because it certainly wouldn’t close without attention. That said I can’t imagine anything damaging it when closed, it’s a strong little thing then. I wouldn’t drill any holes to turn it into a twist tap box though, on mine I can’t turn the lid at all.
You can’t turn the lid on yours? I ‘tuned’ my first one to be pretty loose, because I made it kinda deep and intend to keep it on my desk at work. It was quite tight to begin with, but I figured that since it would be on my desk, I didn’t have to worry about it coming open in my pocket. It’s ‘loose’ in the sense that gravity will open it, but if you do it that way you have to remove the lid slowly or else the air pressure will lift the box up with the lid and then drop it. I just made another one today, and I ‘tuned’ it so that it’s only tight for the last couple of mm, ie it’s easy to slip on but gets tight and locks in place when closed. I also made it so that there is a gap between the lid and the base to get my nail into to open it. I was concerned that if it was tight all the way, I might end up slipping and spilling the contents, but it did still need to be secure as this one is for my pocket not my desk.
I have today been unable to resist and have ordered one of those Penny Snuff boxes from said gentleman in Wales. Photo to follow when it arrives.