Hi,
I recently came across a very old looking wooden tobacco box from a company called Child & Co., from 2 Chowringhee street. calcutta and it looks like it has a lot of age to it. from what i could source im guessing late 1800s
I would be interested in finding out its rough age and also if it has any resell value. I really dont feel i have the storage requirements it needs to keep it in its current condition as a bit of the address flicked off of the very brittle address label stuck on the front and even if its not worth much, its still worth retaining the original condition before it gets worse!
So far all i have been able to find out about it is that it contained Trichinopoly Corona type cigars, made famous by Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Study in Scarlet" (1887) where Sherlock Holmes correctly deduces that the perpetuator of a gruesome murder had smoked a "Trichinopoly cigar". When questioned by Dr. Watson about his methods, Holmes replies that the cigar ashes observed at the spot of the murder were "dark in colour and flaky", as in a Trichinopoly.
This was all in the days before Havanna cuba was discovered :)
Mark Twain also wrote to the company Child & Co., on 8th feb 1896 as sourced from the Mark twain project website, i cannot find anything that looks remotely similar on the web.
also found their address within "American trade with India"
http://www.archive.org/stream/ameri...g_djvu.txt
Anyway, would love to know more, its not the finest workmanship ever and these were probably churned out in their 100s for export (you can see the 8 Annas excise tax sticker on the side). I also understand that at some point US law stated that cigars had to be sold boxed, so im assuming that this box was created after that date.
Certainly an interesting box, what do you think?