The other day I got myself into a fit of ebay madness and picked up these three boxes. The first seems to be a silver plate, the listing didn’t mention any markings or provide a decent picture of the hinge. I liked the looks of it, so I threw my money at them anyhow. The second is listed as made of bovine horn. Obviously some kind of wood on the third. I believe the metal box is the largest, at appox. 3.25 inches wide.

The silver toned and horn boxes were listed as 19th century victorian. I’m pretty wary of these reports, but I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts. Anything you can offer regarding authenticity or practical usage as a snuff box would be greatly appreciated.

I haven’t received them yet and can make no reports on their ability to hold snuff or amount of leakage. 

Very nice start of a collection, the horn box leave at home. fragile! and keep it waxed. the silver one looks like brass not bad will hold up and take abuse.The wooden one it looks like some damage at right hinge.wax the sides of the lid and add a piece of clear tape to the closing lip of the lid for tight fit.

Try blowing air though around lids if they leak only fill one or two days of snuff. If tight fill them up. And let me know when you will be bidding so I don’t.

Thanks for the great info! What kind of wax should I be putting on them? It was my first experience actually bidding (I’ve always just gone for the buy now option) and I must admit I got a little upset on the first auction I lost lol. I’ll have some better info and update when I actually receive them.

All of them look very useable. You’ve made some good choices.

Nice variety. The only ones with which I have any experience are the wooden ones, and that looks like a pretty good one. basement_shaman suggests pipe wax, I think, to improve the seal. Natural wax furniture polish (not the spray-on stuff) will keep the outside looking good. Have fun with them!

I use carnauba wax with my buffer on wooden snuff boxes as well as my pipes. Works a treat.

As @sloth said pipe wax I use paragon wax. If possible heat the wooden box up, a hair dryer will work; this will do two things ,open up the end grain and absorb the wax fast and expand the seal. Any natural wax- surf board,pipe, butchers,bee’s.  

Ah, perfect. I have some bee’s wax on hand, but I think I will eventually invest in some pipe wax. Thanks again for the input, fellas!

I like your purchases, enjoy them to the full

So, I got the wood box in today and it looks great… Except for the slight damage at the right hinge that @basement_shaman pointed out. Theres actually a chip in the wood on the inside, underneath the right side of the hinge, this is letting the lid slip around a tiny bit and sometimes the box wont close all the way unless I push it down… Thinking I might be able to stick it down with some super glue…

EDIT: I went ahead with the glue and now it closes just fine. After further testing, however, I found that there is a seam along the bottom side of the hinge that leaks like a sieve… Dang it! I really want to use this box…

If you get a acetone base wood filler you can put it over the seam and fill the voids.And carefully sand the repair with 150.180 and 220 grit paper… Then you can stain it to match; light it on fire this will burn off the petroleum of the stain and dry it at the same time.them if possible buff it then wax it. if just repairing the inside sand smooth then wax if the coloring is not important to you. Kill two birds with one stone use a color crayon or brown shoe polish. And use a heat gun or blow dryer to set it. Polish with rag or extra soft tooth brush. A permanent maker could work to stain then seal with wax. Good luck

PS. don’t use wood puddy it will never dry.It may be possible to get a colored wood filler

AHA! Brilliant, sir! As luck would have it, I had some wood filler handy. Applied it into the gap with a tooth pick and smeared some hot brown shoe polish over it with a q-tip and voila! The filler was “natural” colored, but with the brown polish it looks pretty good. Thanks a bunch! 

Got the metal box in today (I was hoping in would be sitting in my mailbox next to my Mr. Snuff order, but alas, not yet…)

The metal is pretty thick and the box has a nice heft to it. The hinge is great, no leaks. The rest of the seal is very decent-- only leaking if I shake the box pretty violently. The lid did not close tightly though, and would fall open if turned over… but a little strip of duct tape along the front lip of the lid worked magic. Very pleased and not a bad pick up for $20. 

But I’ve still got a question for you folks:

The inside of the box has some kind of gold wash, but there is some of that green crusty crap forming around the edges and in one corner of the box. Should I try to clean it off or just leave it that way?

@Scurvy -Take that crap off, it is copper. clean the box with a salt and white vinegar mixture or with salt and lemon , make a paste or boil it on the stove .let the paste dry polish off then rinse, boil method rinse and dry with cloth then hair dryer. then seal with bee wax,and heat up hinge to get the wax on the hinge pin; keeps it from rusting and lubes it same time.

@basement_shaman I’m beginning to think you might know everything about everything. Thanks again!

@Scurvy - many old silver boxes had a gilt wash inside - if the box is silver it is definitely not copper and you wouldn’t want to be removing it. If it is silver plate it could be a Sheffield plate box, which were silver on copper. These are very collectable and, again, go easy on any cleaning. I would give it a gentle clean to the point of making it useable again but nothing harsher than a silver cleaning cloth. I wouldn’t be boiling or heating any antique box, unless you want to ruin it. 

@Snuffster there are several places where the silver is worn away and it appears to be brass underneath. One thing I found strange, though, is that there are no markings anywhere on the box… except for some initials engraved on the lid which I can hardly make out.

I remember reading a bit on Sheffield plate and that it was basically sheets of silver wrapped around another metal object, that would create a seam where the two ends of the silver meet…? This box has a partial seam across the back side, but is appears to match with a seam in the base metal that goes all the way around the inside of the box. 

I love antiques and would love to be able to accurately date this item… But I still think it’s neat whether it’s 2 or 200 years old. 

It seems very likely to be Sheffield plate from your description. I’m afraid without a recognisable makers mark or company stamp you are left with dating by type and style. Plating was developed as a process around 1742 and Sheffield plate came in shortly after that - Sheffield being a major centre for cutlery and pewter ware and there were literally dozens of firms making all kinds of plated items - a good percentage of which will have left no researchable trace of themselves. In the absence of any provenance you can only work on those facts, plus wear and tear - but even that is next to useless because you could have a very old box that was never used much and lived in a drawer for most of it’s ‘life’ or a more recent box that was used on a daily basis, both circumstances capable of giving the same appearance. True Sheffield plate is silver on copper. If it was mine, and I was going to use it rather than display it, I would buy an impregnated silver cloth and just give it a light polish, sufficient enough to remove any kind of deposit on the metal.

Bear in mind that If you are looking at silver through the gold wash, as it were, it probably is silver - there are lots of silver snuff boxes without hallmarks - it will be plate if the silver has worn away leaving the copper colour. The deposit could be anything. Whatever, it’s a fine little piece.

I would be ecstatic if I managed to pick up something so collectable on my first venture into snuff boxes… but I’m pretty skeptical that I’m that lucky. It’s difficult to describe in perfect detail and I wish I had some better pictures to offer…  but here are a couple more from the seller… 

Underneath that green bit in the corner is yellow metal like the wear spot in the second picture, only very dull.  There is also a seam that goes all the way around the inside of the box, separating the top and bottom halves. 

I would say it’s plated copper, the small patch of wear gives it away. Whether it’s Sheffield in the strictest sense is impossible to say, but it is certainly plate-ware and a beautiful snuff box under any circumstances. I would get to work, gently, on the deposit with a q tip and plenty of patience. Congrats on a very nice item.

@Snuffster Thanks for all the insight! I realize that it can be impossible to judge such items, unless maybe an “expert” can physically inspect it… But I appreciate you and everyone else passing along their nuggets of knowledge and experience. I’m lovin’ the box and I got really lucky with these great pieces, especially when I didn’t really know much about what I was buying in the first place… and I think I’m developing a good basis for expanding my collection. 

I dun’no about the third one…

It looks as if it MIGHT not seal very well. But if the price is right, it could alway be a desktop snuffbox or a display piece.

The horn one is nice - these were still made until relatively recently - I got one identical to it from Tranter’s in the 80’s. German I believe.

UGH
I want a plain, smooth, silver snuff box SO BAD (like that first one but without engraving)
Just a little one for daily snuff use.

you can never find any for a good price and I’m not much for auctions…

I know this is a probably a pipe dream but if anyone knows about one worthwhile lemme know!

@transistor I was never a fan of auctions until recently. You should really check it out. You can decide how much you’d be willing to pay for a certain item and if you get out-bid, just find something else to bid on. You can find a wide selection of just about anything. And you can really luck out and pick up something really great for super cheap. All three of those boxes I got in the $20-30 range. 

@Scurvy,Some plated boxes will have a hallmark or two ,check left side of lid towards the front. Nice looking box.

@basement_shaman I’ve looked all over it several times and I can’t see anything like a hallmark. So from this, I figure it’s either pretty old, or relatively new and made by some no-name company? I don’t know. Either way, I like it. 

I got the horn box in yesterday and I think it’s my favorite so far. Beautiful and verry cool! And the seal is amazing… it almost hurts my finger trying to open it. I’m very pleased with this collection I’m starting… I really want one of those French wooden boxes with the silver trim! 

@Transistor - go to some antique fairs and just haggle - sooner or later you will get what you want at the price you want. It’s amazing what dealers will let go at a low price if it’s the end of a slow day and they want to recoup some money. Might take some patience but you will have the advantage of being able to hold the item and make sure it’s not damaged, useless etc etc. The type of place that has a hundred small stalls, not auctions, are the best hunting grounds outside of ebay.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Unique-Sterling-Silver-Wide-Pill-Box-High-Polish-Finish-/200874855981?pt=LH\\_DefaultDomain\\_0&hash=item2ec5130e2d Nice box for yourself

Looks nice. Nice to see a modern one being made.

Save your money. I bought one of those from this seller about 6 months ago and had to send it back because of the slop in the dimensions of the inner rim on the lid…it leaked snuff rather badly. No problem getting a refund though, so if you want to take a chance… There was a thread about it here. ah here’s the post: “Enchanted Silver I guess we’re counting on @Mouse to tell us if these are quality or not then. The Enchanted Silver box arrived today and it is going back tomorrow. It is made from 26 ga. sterling which is rather thin–0.065” if I remember correctly. It is designed like a snuff box and just holds 5gm. of snuff. I filled it with some WoS Irish Toast and gave it a shake. Lots of snuff came out from the sides; the inner rim is nearly 1/8th" from the edge of the opening on the short sides and there is no fix for this poor engineering. Save your money."

I remember now.

That is too bad as those look to be the real McCoy. “The real McCoy” is an idiom and metaphor used in much of the English- speaking world to mean “the real thing” or “the genuine article”.

i won this box last night. Should i use this only with dry snuffs?

There seem to be only two genuine silver snuff boxes still being made, one by Ari D Norman and one by Regnas both offered in slightly different styles. The Ari D Norman box has shot up to just under £300 bought from them, which is a massive increase from a couple of years ago when they were about £90. Everything else seems to be a pillbox despite various misleading descriptions. Check the dimensions on anything purported to be a snuffbox - I have fallen foul of this a couple of times and the things that came in the mail were the size of a postage stamp and about as useful for snuff. Pill box hinges are usually useless for snuff and jam after you have filled with snuff If anyone comes across what seems to be a genuine newly manufactured silver snuff box please flag it up on here, but as I say I think there are just two nowadays - I can vouch for the Ari D Norman boxes, these are great after a bit of judicious squeezing to cure the leaks. The cheapest I have seen on ebay in recent times was about £140, although one member won a couple for £20 each a couple of years ago.

the box above picture is 7*4*1,8cm as described on ebay. I found larger boxes at antique store but they were for cigarettes.

@linguist It depends on how airtight it is and how pourus the wood is. My wood boxes tend to not do well with moister snuffs. One made of padauk is better than the others, but still warps and lets the snuff dry out. It looks like a nice box though.