OT Looking to find out what this bar was made from.

[M.B. Naegle]

The decoration seems too fancy yet crude for old American or Anglo/Western Europe. Looks Spanish, Mediterranean, or Mid/Far Eastern to me. The bumps and scalops were/are popular in leatherwork, but seeing it in iron only really pops up south of the boarder. Western American and Northern Native iron work tends to be more simple, with the fancy stuff either being tooled in leather or silver and brass.

 

[swamp dweller]

What does the back of it look like?

The Top, sides, bottom, shelves and racks are made from different newer wood than the front. The attached pictures show the inside of the wood of the front (grey) and the newer different wood of the rest (brownish) It looks like the sides were cut to fit the profile of the front part and epoxied on to it. In picture, bar 14 ,you can see light between the top and front part. I can stick a 6 in. scale an that gap the whole length of the top. The top is not attached to the front, only the sides.

 

[swamp dweller]

The decoration seems too fancy yet crude for old American or Anglo/Western Europe. Looks Spanish, Mediterranean, or Mid/Far Eastern to me. The bumps and scalops were/are popular in leatherwork, but seeing it in iron only really pops up south of the boarder. Western American and Northern Native iron work tends to be more simple, with the fancy stuff either being tooled in leather or silver and brass.

That's what intrigues me about this thing. All the banding has some type of decorative marking on it. Some places are hard to see it because it's worn but it is there.

 

[DrHook]

So, all the metal parts are decorative, not structural? Looks like something "fancy", like church, altar, or organ... the square holes suggest it is quite incomplete.

 

[cyanidekid]

Here are some more pictures with better detail. Also the banding is magnetic.Bronze was mentioned earlier.

oh, interesting. the lugs are a metal sandwich, and a wood sandwich, wow.
...and the decoration is rather intricate.... this is something else. I seriously doubt a combine or a even a ship would have this..
now I'm thinking something from a traveling show, Roma style?
"step right up!"
where was this found? any chance of getting more info from the seller?

 

[swamp dweller]

So, all the metal parts are decorative, not structural? Looks like something "fancy", like church, altar, or organ... the square holes suggest it is quite incomplete.

I wouldn’t say the banding is decorative but rather decorated. They are structural as nothing would hold the staves in place without them. As M.B. Neagle said “fancy but crude”.

 

[swamp dweller]

oh, interesting. the lugs are a metal sandwich, and a wood sandwich, wow.
...and the decoration is rather intricate.... this is something else. I seriously doubt a combine or a even a ship would have this..
now I'm thinking something from a traveling show, Roma style?
"step right up!"
where was this found? any chance of getting more info from the seller?

My wife found it in a store named Tuesday Morning. They called it a “carved wooden bar””. I stopped in there yesterday. The only info I could get from them is it was made in India.

 

[fciron]

My wife found it in a store named Tuesday Morning. They called it a “carved wooden bar””. I stopped in there yesterday. The only info I could get from them is it was made in India.

Indian, part of a Jingle Truck maybe?

They rebuild them regularly. So there would be old, weathered parts available.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Pakistani_truck.jpg

 

[Joe Gwinn]

I just saw a picture at an archeology site showing some very old weathered balsa wood. It looks exactly like the mystery material.