Shiny things deserve a nice box
I've been admiring the treasure chests from @kerrislravenhill whenever I saw them in a post. I've bought a few boxes as a temporary place to store silver coins and jewellery but none of them had the 'awe' moment where you knew this is one I will love looking at and opening to admire what's inside.
Flea market
Every time we're on the flea market, I have a treasure chest on my list but you know how these things go, they come at the right moment and you never know if that's today or tomorrow or even months from now. Patience is key and when you find it, you know it's the one. Before the weekend, I left a comment stating I was going to look for a treasure chest on the market this Sunday, and so I did.
Second market
I didn't find it on the first market we went through, as this one was way better than every other time we went there, there were new stalls and sellers, I didn't find a frame for my painting (it was on my list as well) or a box that I felt intrigued by. But then the idea came to not do the second round on this market, instead let's drive to the other one about half an hour from here and have about 2 more hours left to see what they have today. And so we did.
It took 5 minutes
We first heard lots of Dutch talking around us and those moments are always funny as my daughter starts pointing it out that she hears "our" language lol, and then the conversation often starts which is nice. Sadly these people didn't have anything we wanted to buy so we continued to the next stalls.
I felt a bit rushed as many were already packing in their stuff with still 1,5 hours on the clock but I can imagine in the burning sun, especially if sold enough or just fed up, you leave a bit earlier. About 3 stalls further, I saw the box.
I loved the way it looked
It didn't cross my mind that it could be silver or silver plated, I just loved the way it was made and it didn't have as much damage as most of these boxes have when finding something slightly decent on these flea markets.
The lock didn't close properly but my boyfriend already told me he could fix it easily and said I should buy it. I asked him what he would give max for it and he said 5 euros. Personally, I agreed that was a fair price considering I really loved the box and it was the first time I was impressed by one and if he could fix the lock, it would be worth 5 euros to me easily.
Sellers price
I had to wait a little as the seller was busy talking but when I asked the price, he said 3 euros. Heck yeah, sold! I love it when I don't have to haggle the price down, even though that can be fun too. Personally, I prefer doing that with items that I would like to have but wouldn't mind walking away from either. This box, I really wanted to have and therefore I was super grateful that he just asked 3 euros as I would have accepted the 5 euros as well.
Sticker on the bottom
The sticker at the bottom was nice to help me find more information and it didn't take me long to see this is coming from a decent brand with some really solid jewellery. This was exciting because how fun would it be if I'd discover the box was also valuable on top of me just being in love with it? I definitely haven't bought it with the intention of selling it, I know for a fact if I'd want to get rid of it, it would be snatched away by either my boyfriend or daughter within seconds as they also have a love for nice boxes.
My boyfriend even said: this is the box I've been wanting for years, you beat me to it!
Researching it
Enough jewellery to be found new as well as second hand from this brand called Jose Luis Joyero but I didn't find any jewellery boxes. At some point, I started to wonder if it was a joke and someone made this box using the sticker from another box maybe. I didn't understand it at all. No such thing as this box to be found anywhere.
Curious for more info
Although I admired the box either way, I had to find out some more information as my curiosity got to me. There was an email address on their website and I decided to just email them with pictures and ask if they could tell me a bit more about this box that I'm so happy with.
I received an answer
In less than a day, I received an email back where they explained to me that this was an item they gifted to people who bought a set of wedding rings as a small token of appreciation but that it's made of high quality silver, of course it's plated because the box is not fully made of silver but you can feel and see that it's quite a bit of silver in total, I'm curious about the weight of the silver alone but I found it rude to ask because after all, I'm not going to sell it anyway.
The box hasn't been for sale so I can't compare it and that's OK, at least now I know that I don't have to keep digging into a rabbit hole where I will probably find nothing in the end.
Very happy with my treasure chest
I would be very happy to find something similar but bigger in the future for more storage because this one isn't as big as I was aiming for. Knowing that it was used for wedding rings, I don't expect there are bigger sized ones out there to be found but at least I learned about another brand with lots of expensive jewellery to look out for on flea markets.
We will go back hunting this weekend because I regret not buying a certain ring, maybe, just maybe, I find a bigger treasure box then?