Good Morning All,
I should have given the dimensions in my first post and, KC, that is mine; I won it at the Bonington's Auction. You can see in the catalogue photo that it looks as if it could easily be a pen tray.
It is reallly very small .... the external dimensions are only about 4" long and 2 1/2" wide, and just over 1" deep. So the internal dimensions are considerably smaller.
The photo from the Auction catalogue is probably clearer in some ways than mine. There are three sections of thick glass (A B & C); the centre one does not move and tapers outwards towards the base, so from length on it will be a triangular shape. The two 'outside' lengths of glass (thick enough to go almost all of the way down to the base, are sprung and do pull to the side (in the photo the cartridge is just keeping one corner apart.
So, because of the shape of the centre piece of glass, the recess on either side of the centre section is not only small, but it also narrows towards the base. If it were intended to hold cigarettes, mart, it would only hold two smallish ones, and the spring is so strong that the cigarettes would possibly be slightly crushed, and would be very difficult to remove.
KC, there is no lid that lifts, the only moving parts are the two end sections of glass that are sprung. I imagine that the base is screwed on, rather than being one section, as it allows access to the spring mechanism.
The more I look at this piece, the more confused I get.
I've attached an end on sketch of what it looks like (Apoogies, I am not a draftsman). It shows that the two outside sections of glass can be pushed towards the edges, but these are thick sections of glass that go down almost to the base. Because of the side on profile of the centre piece of glass then you can see there is very little room in the recesses, maximum 1.5 cms across the top (with the glass sections open) tapering down to ? And for what?
