With our highest compliments and utmost honors, Bay Colony Antiques is proud to offer for sale this fantastic early 20th century Antique Oak Filing cabinet / Specimen cabinet by EH Sheldon. We purchase a lot of file cabinets and institutional oak like this but haven’t had a Sheldon cabinet in at least 10 years. Edgar Sheldon began appearing in historical records at the end of the 19th century and into the early 1900’s. His earliest business ventures that we encountered were patents for woodworking vices and woodworking benches around the Chicago area. Chicago had recently hosted the Colombian Exposition, or World’s Fair, in 1893 and the area was teeming with bright individuals and business leaders. The EH Sheldon company was moved to Muskegon in 1912 which helps us date this piece. The company began making woodworking benches and related cabinetry, and later branched out into a wider array of institutional furniture for schools, government offices, hospitals, architects, laboratories, etc..
This cabinet has 10 drawers with a number of different drawer layouts. We included two collage photo s of the layout of each drawer showing that 4 are fully open, 3 are segmented into six sections, 2 are sectioned into twelve compartments, and the last remaining drawer is split into one large section with two smaller ones at the back. The dividers can always be removed if you wish to use each drawer at full size. Each drawer retains their original brass bin pulls with a space for an index card. The cabinet also retains its original EH Sheldon decal at the top center and was once fitted with a lock on the side that has since been removed. The cabinet has double paneled sides and a paneled back. The drawers measure 16 3/4” wide x 15” deep x 3 1/8” tall. The overall dimensions of the cabinet are 23” wide x 20 1/2” deep x 52 1/4” tall.
