The diamond-set cipher is for Christian IX, King of Denmark (1818–1906). As Christian, Prince of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, he succeeded his kinsman Frederik VII (b. 1808) to the Danish throne in 1863. The early years of his reign were troubled, partly due to the disputes between the crown and parliament connected with the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, but also due to popular discontent about the loss of the duchies Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg following Danish defeat in the Second Schleswig War (1864). A reputation for personal integrity, combined with longevity, ultimately led to him being revered by his people and earning, through the marriage of his six children into other royal families, the soubriquet ‘the father-of-law of Europe’.
Variations of the leaf motif on the base of this box were used for the decoration of a number of boxes made by C. M. Weishaupt Söhne in Hanau in the late 1870s to early 1880s, as shown by pulls pasted in two albums in the Hanau archive. The four collet-set diamonds on the lid of this box were added at a later date, replacing the small gold rosettes of the original design

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