19th Century Tiger Oak Desktop Humidor

[xrundog]

This is an as bought pic of what I believe is a 19th century tiger oak humidor. Dating is based on the style, the hardware, and the lining. It's kind of a one off. Never seen another like it. It was a heavy box with interesting joinery and highly figured wood. Built like a tank too. Thing was over a 100 years old and every edge was straight as can be.



The top finish was heavily alligatored. Finish on the rest of the box was salvageable but this made me strip it.



Original zinc interior was pretty corroded and had to go. Not that I've ever kept a metal liner. At the time, I wouldn't have even considered it. Today if it was in good shape I might at least use parts of it.




Front view of the finished box. This is one of my early efforts. I was using tung oil varnish at the time.



People were telling me that the grain could be filled using successive coats of varnish. I quit around coat #25. Grain was too deep. Still came out nice, but I wanted a more vintage look than this. Still very pretty!



All cedar liner. Very swank. The top just flopped back. Took me a while to find a suitable brass chain stay. Didn't have it yet when I took pics. I quit using varnish shortly after this. I felt it didn't keep the vintage look and frankly was more trouble than it was worth. I saw this humidor sell on eBay a few years ago. Didn't bring much money. Seemed crazy to me!