Help aging walking canes (part 3)

Hi,

This cane is quite unusual. Looks hand painted and possibly Indian? Just thinking with the design of the painting. Not sure the wood, it feels bamboo as has "lips" but that might be the paint.

Any ideas about age and wood type, area from would be great.

Thanks

 

Interesting. Without a handle at one end, I wonder if this is more "walking stick" than "cane." Or maybe something else entirely?

How long is it?

 

Well, I had made a comment on another of these five threads all by the same poster and on same subject. See recent Topics upper right or "Similar Threads" below.

This is just an observation with no more commetns.

 

Yeah, I was thinking no handle was unusual. Its design points to a top and bottom but is unusual.

Could it be some tribal type stick? I know I have seen those types before that have no handle to speak, used in a ritual rather than as a walking aid.

Though in all fairness most canes were used as fashion items rather than walking aids ☺

 

He asked in the General forum whether it would be better to post all in one thread or separate, and was advised to break them into separate posts or small groups. FYI.

 

Thanks figtree

 

Considering the number of people I know, of various ages, who currently use canes for various reasons, and also considering that corrective surgery and/or therapy would have been less likely in the past, suspect that's an inaccurate generalization...

~Cheryl

 

From what I've read of canes from 1700 onwards they were regarded as a fashion accessory. Obviously there would have been some used for walking aid, but were a lot made as an accessory, a way to show your wealth so the fancy designed ones, especially from victorian era were more likely to have been used as a fashion accessory than purely a walking aid. Hence the niceness and complexity of some of them.

Nowadays canes are pretty much purely for walking aid and maybe a decent percentage use older canes for that way but as far as I know up to 1940s a lot of canes were seen as a fashion accessory 1st.

 

Sorry, the use of canes and walking sticks as fashion accessories by dandies and ladies, or even the use as an indicator of the holder's stature, does not overshadow their inherent purpose as, primarily, supports for the infirm (though a good crutch was also helpful), or to steady oneself on uneven ground or a long journey, or as crooks for shepherds and farmers, or as a staff for defense, even the military swagger-stick had purpose. The strength of the wood was usually a selling feature, and while a good number of the antiques that are still around are of a fancy variety because they often had easier use and were just more attractive, to say that "most canes were used as fashion items rather than walking aids" just doesn't seem a reasonable assumption...

~Cheryl

 

Fair point. I wasn't thinking they out sold the ones used for walking aid but most of the antique ones you find today will have survived because they were a fashion accessory, so like you said, survived as they weren't used as much as other canes.