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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DragonflyWink, post: 100142, member: 111&quot;]Heh, the very short-lived blog - amazing, the number of emails that come my way from those few posts...&nbsp; 2010 was a miserable year, filled almost to the end with problems - started the blog to get my mind off what had already happened, but then things just kept getting worse and didn&#039;t have the time or heart to keep going.</p><p><br /></p><p>The gator looks like it might be a handle to a letter knife or something - and it looks late 19th-early 20th century American to me too, most likely orange wood, which is freakishly hard.&nbsp; My Mom lost her venerable old navel orange tree to the dreaded greening disease a few years ago, and last year I used an old branch to make beaded suncatchers for her and my brothers, started off with a good hacksaw blade, but had to use my oscillating tool to get through the small branch.&nbsp; My brother just cut off the trunk when he came down for Mom&#039;s birthday on Halloween - only brought a small electric chainsaw since the trunk was only about 8&quot; in diameter, took him forever to get through (told him the wood was hard!).&nbsp; Anyway, I have Larry Roberts&#039; book on Florida souvenirs, but apparently it&#039;s packed away at the moment, since I can&#039;t seem to find it - my ladle has carving almost identical to a couple of other pieces in the book, enough so that I&#039;d bet they were done by the same carver.&nbsp; I&#039;ve seen these gator carvings marked with tourist-town names from as far north as New Jersey - suspect most, if not all, were coming out of the Jacksonville area, and sold by wholesalers to other locations.&nbsp; For comparison of the wood, the pic below is orange wood after a light sanding with a bit of the the thin bark remaining and a matte-finish varnish applied.</p><p><br /></p><p>Don&#039;t really &#039;collect&#039;, but have gathered quite a few Dala horses over the years - agree that this one looks to have some age...</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]25289[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>~Cheryl[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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