Silver Pencil Part

Found this inch long piece of silver at a farmhouse site where I have found a flat button and a Block I Confederate button. Could this be a pencil or pen part? It has the word ‘NOT’ on it with other engraving. It also had a brass like part inside of it.. it is about same diameter as drinking straw.

 

@Shangas

 

Does the brass bit slide up and down at all?

My guess - and this is only guess without being able to see the entire thing...is that it's a slide-action or drop-action pencil-holder, in nickel-plate.

I'm not sure what the "NOT" refers to. It does not appear to be part of a larger word, so it wouldn't be, for example, an "ONOTO" fountain pen or whatever... which is a real brand, btw. It's from England...but this is America...a highly unlikely place for a broken silver pen/pencil to show up, if it was made in England...

 

My guess would be that it looked something like this, when it was intact:



...although I doubt that your piece is silver. Anything silver that's been found in the ground like that would be badly tarnished by now. I'd say yours is nickel.

 

Thank You for the info. I have read a little about "Drop Action" Pencil-Holders and will examine the interior piece and describe it here later. It does slide freely. From the reading on my Metal Detector, I was confident it was silver, but its hard to tell. It is very thin and does not appear to be a plating. The word NOT is almost certainly a stand alone word, not part of a larger word.

 

Have you cleaned it at all? Polished it? I just don't buy that it's made of silver. Unless it was cleaned after it was found, because silver would've tarnished.

 

I haven’t cleaned it. When I find old silver coins they typically tarnish some but when I find a sterling silver item like an old ring recently, they look new.
I’m not certain it’s silver, I may pick up a test kit..
I looked at the inside part closer. Pictures below. It has obvious outside threads.
It is very small, I’m not sure how small the drop pencils are.
I am most intrigued by the one word: NOT.. what could that be a part of…
I found another antique silver pencil metal detecting several years ago, just part of the outside silver part survived but it had some words on it that tied it to a department store in Ohio……
I appreciate the feedback

 

Sterling drop-action pencils are very small, probably 2 inches at most.

 

Over on the Vintage Mechanical Pencil Identification Facebook group I got this comment
"Forget me not pencils were a common gift of affection in antebellum America"
A google search found only one example but it fits perfect with time line and appearance:
STUNNING EDWARDIAN "FORGET ME NOT" SILVER MECHANICAL PENCIL A "FORGET ME NOT" pencil made circa 1900-1914

 

That'll explain it, then. Very nice