A battered 1677 wooden cabinet looked like an ordinary old box; one photograph of its original key helped Sotheby’s identify a rare piece that sold for $1.64 million

A small carved oak cabinet made in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1677 reached Sotheby’s as a few photographs submitted through its online portal. To an untrained eye, it might have looked like a grungy old box. Then Erik Gronning, a senior advisor in Sotheby’s American Furniture, Folk Art and Decorative Arts Department, saw the last image: the cabinet’s original key. It was, he says, the moment he knew for certain it was a period piece. In January 2026, the Symon and Rebeckah Horne Pilgrim Century Valuables Cabinet sold for $1,636,000, the highest price for American furniture in more than a decade.What made the battered 1677 wooden cabinet worth $1.64 millionAccording to Sotheby's, the piece is titled the Highly Important Symon and Rebeckah Horne Pilgrim Century Valuables Cabinet. It is attributed to the Symonds shops in Salem and dated 1677. Sotheby's records the sale price as $1,636,000. An untrained eye might read the object as a grungy old box. Sotheby's states that it is one of only five known examples attributed to the Symonds shops, and the only one to survive with its original key.The carved door bears the initials of Symon and Rebeckah Horne, an Andover couple, on either side of a small heart. Erik Gronning, a senior advisor in Sotheby's American Furniture, Folk Art and Decorative Arts Department, says the heart was included to symbolise the couple's love. Above it is the date the Hornes had the cabinet made: 1677, the year their son was born.How did the cabinet’s original key prove it was a rare 17th-century pieceThe submitted photographs included an image of the cabinet's original key. Gronning recalls his first reaction to the submission, saying, "I did not believe it was real when I saw it." He says it was the final submitted image, the one showing the original key, that made him certain the cabinet was a period piece and a highly important one.The cabinet to the Symonds shops and says it is the only one of the five known examples to retain its original key. In the account Sotheby's gives, a single photograph therefore moved the cabinet from an object that appeared ordinary to one that its specialist regarded as of high importance.Why did Sotheby’s sell the 1677 wooden cabinet for $1.64 million in 2026The cabinet descended through the Horne family for generations. It later passed to a local historical society, which the article says had quietly held it for some sixty years before deciding to let it go. The piece then came to Sotheby's through the submissions portal.The sale took place in 2026, and the final price was $1,636,000. The auction house describes this as the highest price for American furniture in more than ten years. Sotheby's presents the cabinet alongside four other portal submissions: a Ten Commandments tablet, a Claude Lalanne armchair, a Rolex Daytona and a Qianlong-period Chinese vase.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.