Featured Sorry, another 'What's it made of?'

They are brilliant aren't they

 

This pressed wood is in fact "Bois Durci", composed of blood (from the slaughterhouses of Paris) sprinkled with sawdust, mixed with other substances, to simulate wood
French patent of François Charles LEPAGE filed in 1855.

 

They did make some from actual pressed wood according to this site, sorry I can’t get a picture, but these were lighter coloured woods like maple.
https://www.opusantiques.co.uk/post/2017/04/14/pressed-wood-antique-snuff-boxes

 

Absolutely! The ones in this link are "pure" wood
The black ones as the round you showed are composition of wood dust with oxblood

 

It’s a bit misleading for the Bois Durci items to be called pressed wood when they are very different from these actually pressed wood maple and birch items. I suppose they consider sawdust as wood and it’s easier than saying Bois Durci and getting the pronunciation wrong