What holds the knives inside the box?

The interior features a stepped wooden board called a matrix. This grid has tailored slots cut into it, often lined with fabric. You drop the flatware in handle-up. The slots grip the narrow necks of spoons and the blades of knives, holding the silver handles high for display.

Why are they always in pairs?

They turn up as single items too. Pairs were standard in grand dining rooms to create symmetry on the main sideboard. A typical arrangement placed one box at each end. A large silver urn or a wine cistern sat between them.

I found one that has been completely gutted inside and turned into a stationery box, does this happen a lot with these?

Conversions are very common. When dining habits changed in the nineteenth century, people moved their silver into flat canteen boxes. The upright sideboard boxes lost their original purpose. Many owners tore out the slotted matrices. They fitted racks for letters, inkwells and pens instead. Finding an intact original interior is getting harder.

The sloping lid on the box I am looking at sits slightly warped and won't lock, can a cabinet maker fix this?

Warped lids happen when the timber dries out unevenly over a couple of centuries. The inner pine shrinks and pulls the outer mahogany veneer out of shape. A good restorer can correct minor warping. They apply controlled moisture and clamp the lid back flat over several weeks. Severe distortion sometimes demands structural work. If the hinge line is broken or the lock relies on a warped alignment, expect a longer repair job.

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Antique Knife Boxes

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Designed to secure expensive cutlery in eighteenth-century dining rooms, an antique knife box is a shaped, lockable wooden case with a fitted interior of slotted matrices holding silver handles upright for display.