This is a Victorian silver-plated oval combination lock snuff box engraved “Henry Stanford 1873.” The hinged lid is fitted with a raised eight-point star which rotates to act as a numbered combination dial, with the numerals one to twelve arranged around it, and four engraved star motifs framing the design. The sides are plain and gently curved, showing light surface wear and scratching consistent with age.
The box remains locked, its original combination and precise method of opening having been lost to time. As such, it would require the careful attention of a skilled silversmith or locksmith to release its mechanism without compromising the integrity of the piece.
A snuff box was used to store snuff, a finely ground tobacco taken by inhaling a small pinch through the nose, a habit that was widespread in Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Such boxes were carried on the person and often reflected the owner’s taste and social standing.
The addition of a working combination lock makes this example particularly unusual. Most snuff boxes relied on a simple hinged lid without any form of security, so a mechanical dial mechanism of this type is rare and represents a clever and inventive novelty of the period. It combines practical function with decorative craftsmanship, making it both an interesting mechanical object and a distinctive piece of Victorian silver plate.
Victoria and Albert Museum. (1908). Catalogue of the mechanical engineering collection in the science division of the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington: Part II. His Majesty’s Stationery Office.
Beaven, L., & Martin, M. (2023). The Stuff of Snuff: The Affective and Sensory Connotations of Snuffboxes in Eighteenth-Century Culture. Emotions: History, Culture, Society, 7(1), 95-118.
