Featured Finds Thread

I think that hand is a handle!

Moonstone beads, a whole pound. They will get a good soak. And a handsome EPNS belt, also a whole pound.

 

This one needs investigation. As it is photographed here, it looks suspiciously like a shell cameo that has had the background broken away & then been glued onto a black backing, which is looking to me more like black basalt pottery. Could just be grunge & lighting.

By far the best of the cameos, although the coral necklace is divine taken as a whole. I'm sure it is meant to be someone specific, but I don't know who. Will have to keep my eyes open. These things have a way of being revealed when you're looking for something else altogether.

This one is a ring? I've seen brooches in these crisscross settings with pearls at the cardinal points, think I have one with little corals, but your concern about wearing as a ring is justified.

 

I’m going to put the one I think is hardstone under the microscope to further investigate.

The last one IS a ring! I loved the tiny pearl accents but the shell is very thin and I feel one good tap would break the poor thing. Might have to be my “sits very still while drinking tea and reading a book” ring.

The coral necklace as a whole is striking. I get the impression the cameo isn’t original because of how it sits in the jet but I’m not complaining.

 

It looks fine to me. I have seen many ill-fitting cameos set in jet. I have the impression that the jet frames were manufactured separately in standard sizes & cameos had to be made to fit. This one looks like it was shaved down at the brow. Generally figures are not deliberately carved that close to the edge.

 

I have one like that too. It looks like the cameo was cut down to fit a frame that had lots its cameo... but maybe not.

I wonder if the "moonstones" didn't start life as glass pearls whose coating was removed. They look more like opalite than moonstone, but you can't always tell from a picture.

 

Ruth, there's no sign of a pearl coating or any remnants thereof. They're colder and heavier than I'd think from opalite, but I'll loupe squint at them.

 

I would think painted by the sender. What year is "back then?" According to this, Miss Fitzherbert was an artist. Not unlikely that her correspondent was as well (or at least artistic.)

http://cornwallartists.org/cornwall-artists/miss-fitzherbert

Debora

 

brilliant info deb thanks, very interesting

the post mark on the stamp is 1910, so all seems to fit in

 

i suppose the post mark could be the place where it was painted as well, didnt think of that !

Churston Ferrers i think

 

I'd agree on it being painted by the sender. Watercolour was a mandatory skill for middle and upper class girls of decent family.

 

Not all those small Devon villages had a post office. Sender could have lived in environs of Churston Ferrers. And could well have been a man. A confident script and initials. Plus it was saved all these years. Frame doesn't look period. Any marks? I can't decipher second initial. (First is an A, of course.) Can anyone else? Could be someone well known. (But not Agatha Christie as doesn't match her hand.)

Debora

 

Yeah the frame was just something i had knocking about, so might be better to find an earlier frame

i think i see A L

 

Well, go back to that list of Cornish artists and see if you can find an initial match. Meant something to someone or still wouldn't be extant.

Debora

 

I don't see an L. A G perhaps.

Debora

 

From the rummage, a leather covered antique cash box, minus the key.
Victorian or Edwardian.

 

Oh, how nice! And what a lovely purple.

Debora

 

oh !! that's just too nice to leave laying around...!!!! Sweet find Houseful !!!!!!

 

Love the fact it is inscribed gold on one case and silver on the other... in case of confusion
Lovely casket!!!

 

sometimes, fine leather has makers marks........do you see any????

 

Any connection to this Ferrers? I have a cameo of his widow, Mary Meredith.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Shirley,_4th_Earl_Ferrers