What a rare treat! Mid-1800s French papier maché gaming box, chest, with its inlays of mother of pearl and nearly all of the original overpainting still on the original form. A superb 11.5" x 11" box with serpentine outer form which is remarkably unscathed by time. You'll note only one spot of damage which is a chipped corner of the bottom half of the box. Inside can be found the original gambling chips, "jeton", and the spaces for the playing cards, while they don't hold an original set of 1850s playing cards, does have 2 decks of new cards - a ready to enjoy beauty. Full measurements noted on photos.
Very good to excellent condition for age and type. More typically with the Victorian or Napoleon III era (c.1850-70s) papier mache, you'll have losses, breaks, losses to most of the fragile outcroppings. To have a box in this material and elaborate designed body, perimeter, it is amazing to find only a very small chip to one of those corners. A bottom one, at that, so easily out of sight for display. The lid lifts off. It was never hinged. The old boxes' hinge area is often damaged, so a real plus in the design of this one. I have not counted the many ivory chips, but certainly a lot of them, all unbroken, and enough to divide amongst 4 players for an evening of whichever card gaming you prefer. Restrictions do apply as follows:
IMPORTANT NOTE regarding antique tortoise shell or ivory: We are great supporters of protection for endangered species in our modern world. We never buy or sell anything 100 years or newer; we donate to anti-poaching organizations; we don't hunt; we conserve in ways that impact global warming (we're totally solar at home), knowing those measures also protect the animals in the wild today. We also recognize the vast cultural history we preserve with our care and reverence for these antique objects, and agree with CITES that objects over 100 years of age have nothing whatsoever to do with species depletion in our current world.
Our offering exceeds the age limitation of "more than 100 years of age", and is well within the exemption for CITES regulation. If imported, met the CITES regulation. This item will be handled and shipped from our Utah business, and is not available for shipment internationally, nor within the USA to California, NY, Nevada, Hawaii, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington if it contains ivory, sorry. Please see our small print for more details.
