With our highest compliments and utmost honors, Bay Colony Antiques is proud to bring to market this exceptional 18th century antique Oak carved Bible box. The box is heavily carved on the front face with chip carvings, agricultural motifs & other symbols. The plant may represent one of the crops people of the early 18th century relied on like wheat, barley, or rice, or it may be a stylized representation of a Pine tree. Pine trees were an important symbol to early American colonists and the symbol was used on the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s Pine Tree Shilling and was even used as an American independence symbol leading up to the Revolutionary War. The box is dated 1717 and bears the initials ST. Considering the box is over 300 years old it’s in fantastic condition. The hasp and key have been lost and one of the hinges has been swapped out, but the original lock & lock plate are still present. The box has received a few old charming repairs in attempts to stabilize the splits, once with the wood battens under the lid and again with the old metal nails on the top. A few of the nails aren’t even over a split, so this may have been done decoratively or as a religious symbolism. The box measures 24 3/4” wide x 14 3/4” deep x 9 1/4” tall. When the lid is fully open the height is 23 1/2” tall.
