Featured Cut Steel Chatelaine

OK, thanks, I think!!! Guess I never realized that…..

 

Left hand one looks more like a cuticle pusher. The next one in, bodkin.

 

I'm with the others, 19th century. Very nice though. The leaves of the little notebook (dance card?) are probably 'French ivory', so celluloid.

I think it is for lacing corsets.

 

From Brandon's little 'Buttonhooks and Shoehorns' (1984) - the tool at left on the very similar chatelaine described as a letter opener, but looks like a spatula to me:





Now this is a nice cut-steel chatelaine:

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O372492/chatelaine-boulton-matthew/




~Cheryl

 

Nice discussion! I have nothing to add, but will keep an eye on this.

 

Just as an added, and possibly helpful note for some, below is a button hook I gave my Mom when her hands became terribly stiff (she didn't like the zipper pull bit, used an old long button hook instead). I passed it on to her sweet occupational therapist when Mom lost the ability to understand how to use it (Alzheimer's is a cruel b**ch)...

https://www.vivehealth.com/products/button-hook-zipper-puller




~Cheryl

 

Agree. Great advert to find!

 

Ah, those were the days!

 

And may they never return.

 

I’m so sorry, so distressing for her and you.
Nifty tool to know about though.

 

The corsets or the dance cards?!

 

Both, really. The corsets were the worst of the two. People still wear (non-orthopedic) corsets, but not the 'internal organ squashing til you faint' type.

 

I notice the best the V&A can make of the implement we think is for doing some kind of buttons is:

"a closed steel loop with steel mounts, and a closed steel loop with steel handle, etched with flowers and a bird"

For some reason they describe it twice; there are not 2 on the chatelaine.

 

Written on a monday morning after a heavy weekend, and the text editor was away walking in the Scottish Highlands.

 

Definitely a chatelaine and probably the chains and belt clip are steel. The items at the end of the chains are: paper knife; unknown; pin cushion; retractable pencil; and note pad. The pin cushion horseshoe, the pencil and the cover on the note pad are probably silver or plated. The note pad should have seven leaves, one for each day of the week and the leaves were for the most part ivory. Note that chains have clips. The clips enabled it to be made into a sewing chatelaine; a party chatelaine; a nurses chatelaine; a housekeepers chatelaine; or whatever chatelaine. They were actually a very handy item if you had a belt or a place to hang them.

 

As to value, I would say that $130 - $140 would be an excellent buy. Check on "sold" on ebay for the entire unit and for each part.

 

Not really sure why there is confusion regarding the loop button hook - there are four similar shown on the Brandon book page with the chatelaine. Here is another bit from the same book, and a page from an 1889 retailer's catalog:








~Cheryl

 

@DragonflyWink is KILLING it!

 

I noticed a red stone atop the pencil and if you you blow up the reference pics that follow the one on the upper left has the same link I believe and is described as steel also. Very pretty.