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Description
Stiff leather hat box with a fitted and padded compartment inside for a man's top hat. The lid has a carrying handle, a leather luggage tag, and a strap to fasten it to the box. The strap has a clasp on one end that fits into a lock on the outside of the box, and the other end has been broken and no longer holds the lid on to the box. The lid is decorated with a burned/embossed line that runs around the top 1/2 inch in from the edge, and two further lines that run around the sides near the top and bottom edge of the lid. There is also fitted padding on the inside of the lid, as well as two red elastic straps with brass buckles on the ends, which match two additional red elastic straps attached to the inside of the hat box in between the lining and the box wall. One of those box straps has a matching brass buckle attached to the end, and the end of the other strap has been torn off. The box has three metal knobs on the bottom, and is stamped "A. S. R." in black. There is evidence of two further straps having been once attached to the sides of the box, running over the top of the lid, and the box is decorated with two burned/embossed lines that run around the box near the top edge and near the bottom. The fitted compartment inside was once glued into the bottom of the box but is now separate. The top edge is padded and curved to fit the brim of the top hat, and the edges that would go under the front and back brim of the hat are not attached to the rest of the compartment, but raise up like basket handles when the compartment is removed from the box. It was probably made of cardboard, covered with a dark burgundy red fabric on the outside (next to the hat box wall when in place) and a wine-red silk on the inside, next to the hat. The bottom of the lined compartment is quilted with ivory thread in an 8-pointed star pattern, with an identical quilting pattern on the inside of the padding in the lid of the hat box.
Type
image
Identifier
EFE0BB58-F600-423A-9EC5-555846744320 2010-94-2
Subject
Nineteen hundreds (Decade) Leather goods Hat industry
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