Sometimes, you just get lucky.

I picked up this beautiful turn-of-the-century writing case in an antiques shop earlier this week. Considering that these things usually sell for insane amounts of money, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the price was actually pretty reasonable…even moreso with a discount! There was nothing seriously wrong with it, apart from needing a cleaning, dusting, and a new key. I already had the inkwells that would need to be fitted into it to make it complete, but the next step was to replace the key which would operate the lock.

The Box in Question…

The box itself was of a design that was common during the second half of the 1800s, with an attached writing-slope, a cavity for documents, and a pop-up compartment that served as an organiser and stationery-caddy. The writing-surface has an in-built desk-blotter with tabs to hold down replaceable sheets of blotting paper. The box comes with two cavities for inkwells, and a removable pen-tray for holding pens, pencils and other accessories.

The box was covered in an unusual type of leather. While it is common for these boxes to be covered in leather, I’d never seen one in this sort of tan-orange colour before, and never with faux-crocodile on it. Most of the ones I’ve seen were plain black, sometimes with minor patterning, but nothing this elaborate. The striped interior of the box was also something new and different, and that was what compelled me to buy it (that, and the price!).

Cutting the Key

The only thing really missing from the box was the key to lock it. Digging through my dwindling stock of antique keys, I managed to find one of roughly the right size. The next step was to start filing. Ideally, you don’t want to have to pull the lock apart when you make a replacement key for an antique lock – they’re delicate things and putting them back together (while certainly possible) is a fiddly process. Where possible, I like to leave the lock in-place, and size the key up by trial and error.

After filing the key to fit the lock, I then had to file the head or bit of the key, to operate the spring and lever inside it. After determining the height of the bit (it needs to be long enough to catch and turn the bolt), I then had to determine how wide the bit had to be (so that it was narrow enough to fit into the space made for the bit).

The height of the key’s bit is determined by the size of the keyhole. You simply file the key until it fits into the keyhole.

The width of the key’s bit (how narrow it has to be to swing around and operate the spring and lever that locks and unlocks the bolt) is done by trial and error. You simply have to keep filing and testing, until the key moves freely. Depending on the key you’re filing, and the complexity of the lock, and whether you need to cut grooves for the wards, this process can take a few minutes…or it can take hours!

The key of a writing-case (or most writing cases, anyway) are pretty simple affairs. Most of them are just simple sprung locks or single ward or single lever locks. Because of this, cutting the key-bit and getting the shape right wasn’t very difficult. Or at least, it wasn’t too difficult this time, anyway!

Filling the Box

The next step in restoring the box is filling it up. I already have inkwells for it, so that’s the hardest bit done. The next step is to find stuff to put into the accessories caddy. This box was designed to hold two pencils or pens, and a ruler or page-turner. Now all I need to do is find them! Not always easy, but it can be done, with diligence!

The Last Gasp of the Writing Box

By the early 1900s, writing boxes and writing cases were fast becoming things of the past. Long considered luxury items which would’ve been owned and used by people of the professional classes, fountain pens, once leaky and unreliable, were now becoming the go-to writing instrument for people engaged in business, writing, and other white-collar occupations.

With the invention of pens which held their own ink-supplies, the whole rigmarole of needing inkwells, dip-pens, replacement nibs and all the rest of it suddenly became a thing of the past. Because of this, the first decade of the 20th century was seen as the last gasp of the traditional writing box, which up to that time, had existed for over two hundred years.

A small number of manufacturers still produced travelling cases or portable writing desks for traveling, or for the army, but these were generally much more compact than what had come before. The arrival of the first portable typewriters in the 1910s and 20s were the final nail in the coffin. Fast, lightweight machines that could be packed into a box smaller than a briefcase saw the end of the writing box, and they were thereafter consigned to the antiques shop and grandpa’s attic…