Reader asks about mysterious box found on trash treasure run

Hi Karen,

I came across your site and it was very helpful. I am new to Ebay and getting a little frustrated. I appreciate your offer to help with items that are hard to place. My family has been collecting for years. I am pretty good at researching things, but I cant find any info on this box. My Dad found it on one of his trash treasure runs.

It is a wooden box with a brass colored decorative metal on the outside. It has a dog with slippers in his mouth on it, and it says slippers inside. Maybe it's not even old, it's just very unique and interesting. If you have any ideas I would love to hear them. We have decades worth of accumulations, mostly just one of kind oddball stuff that my Dad has acquired. Let me know if you can.

Thanks, Kerry

Hi Kerry,

Sounds interesting! I've never come across anything like you have described myself, but with two minutes of research online this morning, I’m pretty sure my suspicions are confirmed.

In the Victorian era, late 1800's, the gentleman of the house would come home to his pipe and slippers by the fireplace. The slippers were stored by the fireplace in an ornate slipper box.
Source: Teresa, Woodbourne Antiques

Yours sounds like this one I found online (pictured above).
It's description and selling price:

Bonzo dog brass bound lidded fireside slipper box c1925.
SOLD: Mar 2006. $163


-- Karen