Featured Tortoise Shell Snuff Box Faux or Fo Real?

Picked up a couple little snuff boxes along with a handful of other goodies from a guy online.The boxes are in much worse condition than I hoped but I bought cheap at least. I have zero idea of how to ID tortoise shell as I’ve handled next to none. I guess I have a few pieces that are obviously faux. This one I’m not sure. Guessing faux but there are some things that seem more natural to me on this one. They could just be wear rather than natural “blemishes” though. Looks like silver inlay on the lid. It came with an old note inside saying it belonged to John Winterbottom. I didn’t dig deep but the only one by that name that was likely era appropriate (guessing early to mid 19th) in the first few pages of google was an English prisoner sent to Australia in 1845. There are/were a lot of people by that name though so it’s unlikely he’s the one. Anyways to start is the material real or imitation plastic would you say? View attachment 353545

 

Looks real,silver pique inlaid tortoiseshell .

 

If you have a magnifying glass or loupe, look at it under magnification. The dark color in real tortoise shell is distributed as tiny dots (cells) of pigment. In most imitations the color will appear as a uniform wash.

 

looks real to me...........

 

Sweet! Too bad it’s so banged up. The photo I had to go on was so dark and broad that I thought this box was probably paper mache.

 

Good tip, thanks! I’ll do that.

 

Would it be 1820’s-1840’s? Potentially earlier? Potentially later?

 

Adam style decoration? Early neo-classical c1770 (or a later revival)?

 

Definitely the real deal. It's ilegal to sell where I live now, at least publicly. If I were to take wild swinging guess I'd say 1820-1830, but a real expert will probably come along and tell us I'm all wet.

 

Real

 

I’ve never even heard of Adam style so I’ll definitely do some reading there. Was hoping the inlay could provide clues to someone knowledgeable enough. Was also hoping someone may suggest earlier. Didn’t seem out of the question based on some examples I saw. You never know what those people know though. Could just be parroting an original wrong assessment. Was thinking possibly as early as you said though. Maybe others will add on.

 

Early pieces! Natural turtle shell, the added clue is the insect bites! Those book eaters called "silver fishes" will eat natural material (horn, turtle shell) but won't touch plastics.
To restore the finish in its former glory, rub some car polish with a ball of tissue till it shines
First fix the lifted wires!
Here is my box before:

And after!

 

Sorry, trouble with stubborn flying quote placemarks today. I feel defeated.

 

Ouch! This beauty is completely dry... you won’t be able to mend the crackles, but I’d use polish on a Qtip for the metal and plenty of clean other ones to rub till the decor shines.

For the shell, it is glued on wood, any strong rub risk to detach small parts
A droplet of thin oil (baby oil, sunflower oil... not olive or paraffin) on a makeup blush brush may improve its dried look (repeat if necessary, rather than overloading the brush!)

 

Thank you!

 

Kyra steals the show, in a good way

Pretty hard to do with that beautiful original tortoise shell.