Early 20th c. Handmade Cigar Box Art Library Desk c.1930
$650
ABOUT
An early 20th century small handmade folk, tramp or cigar box art library desk with hinged top, metal pulls and two pull out drawers. Visible Cuban Punch Cigar brand burnished stamps throughout. United States cigar tax stamp located inside the drawer. The drawers are constructed with dovetail joints.
This hand crafted library desk can be one of the following:
- Salesman Samples: Traveling representatives carried highly detailed miniature furniture to retail stores to take custom orders without hauling full-sized items.
- Cigar Brand Promotions: Major tobacco companies often commissioned high-end, novelty storage humidor boxes shaped like miniature executive desks to showcase at fine shop counters.
- Apprentice Masterpieces: Aspiring cabinetmakers built tiny, fully functional scale models to prove their technical grasp of complex joinery like miniature dovetails.
- Tramp Art: With depression-era ingenuity, resourceful woodworkers, hobbyists, and traveling craftsmen used these abundant, free materials to build scaled-down models of household furniture commonly known as Tramp Art.
Shown with life size hand model for scale.
- CREATOR Unknown.
- DATE OF MANUFACTURE c.1930-1940.
- MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES Wood, Metal. Dovetail joinery on the drawers.
- CONDITION Good. Wear consistent with age and use.
- DIMENSIONS H 4 in. W 6.5 in. D 4.5 in.
HISTORY
The History Behind Cigar Box Furniture
The Material Boom: In 1865, the U.S. government passed a tax law requiring all cigars to be packed in standardized wooden boxes of 25, 50, or 100. Because the tax stamps could not be legally reused, millions of high-quality thin cedar and mahogany boxes were thrown out by taverns and cigar bars every year.
