Today most of us use a tinder box to carry a flint, a striker, some char cloth, tow, etc. In the journals of the day it seems the tinder box only carried tinder- maybe punk wood, and the sparks were directed into the tinder box and the ember removed with a knife blade etc. I just finished reading that if a coal was left in the punk to grow the ash served as char the next time around. Anyone do it that way?

Red Owl,
That might effectively be what happens.

Some tinder boxes came with dampers to smother the embers in the tinderbox...particularly the round candlestick/tinderbox combinations and the early wooden ones. The fires were made in the tinderbox, the candle lit and the tinder put out. All that smothered fire and partially burnt tinder seems like it would function like char next time around.

Sparks

Here's an image of one of those boxes opened, showing the damper.

tindboxdampout.JPG (66 KB, 135 downloads) tinderbox/candlestick with damper

Nice tinderbox, thanks for sharing the photo.

I can provide the tinsmith address if you like...contact my email address.
Sparks