Posted 5 years ago
LizzyTC
(1 item)
We have just bought this humpbacked trunk and are struggling to date it. Any help would be good. The lock is the Eagle lock company, USA, Conn. There is no other writing or marks visible on the trunk that we can see. It has a little woodworm so we've treated it. It looks as if it's pine wood and the black part of the body looks likes sacking that was once painted with tar. I bet it has some stories to tell, would love to know what. Maybe a famous treasure chest :)
I think this one looks older than it is, I think the latches on the front were patented in the early 1890's, almost all trunks had pine body's some jenny Lind's had poplar body's, hard to tell from pictures but covering could be canvas or what was called sail cloth but that's just a guess can't really tell, I believe the lock is a later patent for Eagle lock co. also, can you see a date on it ?
Thank you greendog. No there is no date that we can see on the lock anywhere, but it does say Eagle lock company, Terryville, Conn. The body is defiantly a cloth of some sort. Can I ask what a jenny lind is?
Jenny Lind trunks were made around late 1840's to about early 1870's only about a 25 year period or so, they were bread loaf or hour glass shaped from the end view, and had big brass buttons with brass or steel bands, most covered in leather, but they were never called Jenny Lind trunks until around the early 1920's after Jenny Lind the Swedish opera singer, there are a lot of them posted on the CW if you care to look.
Looking on google images of Jenny Lind trunks, I don't think it is, but I could be wrong.
Your trunk is not a Jenny Lind, I didn't mean to imply that it was, just referring to the different woods that trunks body's are made of, your trunk is a barrel top or round top style trunk.