When the sub contractor that plumbed and wired the houses my dad built before I took that job over decided to retire my dad bought his business, inventory and all.

That was 50 years ago.

Included were these boxes full of assorted "stuff". Nearly 100 of them!

I wonder what they were actually made for and how old. They are about 6"x6-!/2" by 13".

None have knobs but most have had added wires and even staples so you can pull them out. Most are missing the dividers. Some have parts wired on the front to see what is in them.

It seems odd they have such nicely jointed corners, perfectly fitted, but the bottoms are somewhat rough and just tacked on, edges exposed.

There is also a home made looking shelf to hold them.

I want to move them to my new shop and display them and hopefully actually use them for something because they look kind of cool.

Some are pretty dirty, rat nest and such... I need to safely clean them somehow but how? I'll leave them as is otherwise.

VERY cool!

My incipient OCD would make me buy and install a consistent (but appropriate) set of handles for all of them, but otherwise, they'd grace my shop in their current condition.

As for cleaning, I'd probably limit it to a stiff brush and a vacuum. I'd also wear a good mask while doing it.

They look to be from a old mercantile cabinet perhaps apothecary from the early 1900's. There were hundreds of variations of these. The entire original cabinet complete can be valuable.

Yep. Apothecary cabinet, or perhaps a card catalog cabinet (like they used to have at the library).

^^^^^^^^
I LOVE that cabinet!

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Yep. Apothecary cabinet, or perhaps a card catalog cabinet (like they used to have at the library).

Long live the Dewey Decimal System!