An antique family trunk just came into our possession. It is very dark blue in color with a Long Lock padlock which on the front has an engraved marking of T907. The back has PAT APLD FOR. Can you please help with the age and maybe origin to see if it matches our family story.
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The Long Lock Company took over another company in the 1930s and closed down in 1995. The words loon like an abbreviation for patent applied for.
Now that is one beautiful trunk!
Looks almost like it was still in the showroom for sale.
Thank you so much for your response and appraisal sites. Story has itvthat this trunk belonged to my mother in laws great grandfather and came from Spain with him.
What a lovely piece!
It is always fun to piece together family history.
Are there any photos of the trunk appearing in the family albums to help date history? I know vacation photos back in the day are nothing like today's selfie every 30 seconds...but you never know if someone captured an image that may help you date it. Even if it was in the background.
Was there anything in it when found? Could anything have slipped in to the lining to help date it (a stray love letter perhaps or sheet of paper)?
If this is the same lock company, this link has a lot of history of the company and talks about the current site being apartments now:
www.richmond.com/
To help you with your research if you believe this is the right company, you can do Google Images search (separate tag in Google menu) to see if there are advertisements for the item in print. That could help you date it, as it is a unique design with the brass? cross stripes. The search could be images advertisements and (one at a time) Rogers & Madison Trunk Co and the later incarnation of Seward Trunk Co.
One more thing that may help you with history is if you have access to old newspapers from the town of the former owner. I say this because I have researched old newspapers through our history center in Pittsburgh and learned of my grandmother and her sisters' travels...and even the travels of their parents.
The small newspapers of the day often detailed when so and so went to visit such and such as big news! I say this because if the person who owned this trunk traveled, you may be able to learn of these travels via old newspapers.
Some of the old newspapers archives are free online, some you have to go to a history center and pay the entrance fee and then you can review. I found mine by putting in my town and newspaper archives into our friend Google.
The old small town newspapers are neat for any family research!
Please let us know what you learn about this lovely piece!! I hope you can have enough to write a neat family history! Never know what trip a piece of luggage will take you on!
Thank you so much for your response! We will take this journey with the trunk and hope to find. It is from my mother in laws family and we know no family where about or stories.
For what it is worth, this is another interesting site about trunks. It is from the internet of course, so it take it for what it is worth. If nothing more, I like the style of the writer :)
I love old trunks and this one fascinated me so I continued to look for anything that could relate to your trunk and did find a few "maybes" that might help with your search.
The trunk came with only the story of coming from Spain with my mother in laws great grandfather. Date around the earliest of 1850ish if my family tree dates are correct. Nothing in it except some photos that family sent (which were amazing).
Thanks for your response and we will keep searching.
I just wanted to say that most trunks of today are no comparison to the antique and vintage trunks (such as yours) as yours was made to last a lifetime and take plenty of abuse so it is amazing to me that your trunk is in such good condition.
I hope you will send some information to some of these sites as I feel sure they can provide you with some of the information you are seeking.
Good luck.
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