Hi Derek, I did not say there were any bananas in the box! There were once but I was down cycling the box, am I right, if it was going north that would have been up-cycling? So off to Oz must be down-cycling.
Contents were rolling stock for his model railway, there is not much LMS railway stuff on sale in Oz. (Other railway companies are also available).
I have since examined similar boxes in my possession and they could also have emanated from Spain. It was here I realised I had fallen fowl of the crime or generic attribution by calling them all banana boxes, such an easy error. As the shallower box once contained grapes.
However the boxes were of curiously similar dimensions, which if expressed in whole numbers were also in feet and inches!!!! The Imperialists have survived but in such small measure.
The numbers, for those of you with that kind of need, were 24 x 16 x 8, and 24 x 16 x 4 for the two boxes. Now even those who are challenged by sorting out scale measurements can see that this subtle combination of numbers allows for boxes to be stacked with no waste of space.
This must go back well before 1958 and so was the humble British banana box the seed idea for this world of containerisation that we now live in?
Roy