A 17TH CENTURY AND LATER FRUITWOOD, HORN AND BONE-INLAID TOBACCO BOX, ENGLISH, CIRCA 1677: the lid mounted with central hexagonal bone plaque inscribed 'THOMAS GREE, 1677' within an pricked oval border and further inscribed 'LEND MEE NOT IF YOU LOVE MEE.', the lid decorated with stylised acorns and other shaped panels, and horn sides and fruitwood base, 9cm wide x 10cm long x 2.4cm high,

The lid with later replacement bone sections.

Literature:

E.H.Pinto in his book‘ Treen and Other Wooden bygones’ states that these oval cedar wood boxes rimmed in horn and inlaid with bone…‘belong to a small and rare English group which all appear to have been made by one man between 1680 and 1710. They bear varied, but attractive inscriptions and dates; this one(in his collection) proclaims ‘for you the best is not too good 1706’’ if a box was good for keeping the pipe tobacco fresh it would sometimes also be used for snuff and they were sold by tobacconists for either purpose according to choice. It could also have been treated as a table box to be passed along to fill pipes at convivial functions. They were sometimes used for a free dip of tobacco on the counter of a tobacconist's shop, or at an inn where the landlord would keep the snuff freshly rasped, or the tobacco nicely moist, on a daily basis.