Antique Trunk with Elaborate Hardware

I was SO happy to see this trunk coming through the doors of my shop as I've been wanting to restore one of these for the longest time. I think that the maker is Secor, although I could be wrong..(?) and it must have been an expensive trunk in its day. It's the hardware. A REAL artisan made this design happen, I mean, WHO would go to such great lengths to cast hardware looking like grapes?! And it isn't just decorative, these pieces are STRONG. Well, I guess there is a bad-guy in this story too. The guy who painted it all RED! Ouch! Not just the hardware but the WHOLE thing! I guess there had to be a reason but I'll never comprehend why. He must have been out to get me but I foiled his horrible crime by first taking off all of the slats and hardware, and then bringing the trunk, lid and two full coffee cans full to the brim of grape hardware to my good friend Eddie, the sandblaster extrordinaire. He uses powder to blast delicate pieces which never hurts the goods, just the "bads". When I got all the pieces back to my shop it was time to burnish and burnish and then burnish and then clear coat. About 10 coats of tung oil on the wood and scraping off tiny fleks of red paint did the job. The only thing better than having one of these trunks, would be to have two of them! Wouldn't it be nice though to just find one that had been hidden away in a room with no dust, right after it was purchased, never used, in mint condition? Sure!