Wooden puzzle box from Budapest, Hungary

This book is not actually a book at all, but it looks like one and while I may be stretching the definition of ‘book’ this particular item has always sat very inconspicuously on my bookshelf and has become just as much a part of my book collection its fellows that simply happen to contain pages instead of sliding panels and secret keys. The box itself is about seven inches tall and five inches wide, lacquered black with small carving features that expose the lighter wood in much the same way that gilding accentuates the spines of nice hardcovers. Rather than literary treasures, this box contains an interesting variety of coins from around the world that tell their own stories about the various departures and returns taken by myself or people that are close to me. The box itself was a gift from my mother who found it in a vendor’s stall in Budapest’s Great Market Hall while on a European trip with my grandfather in 2001. Almost a decade and a half later, on my own European trip, I would find this very same market and pass by what was probably the very same vendor selling the very same puzzle boxes (this item will be closely connected to a travel guide that I will be posting on later this year).

As an added update to this entry, I have just recently added some Jamaican coinage to this box which already contains currency from Austria, Spain (both have specific versions of the Euro), Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and the UK.