Same site that gave up Civil war items also gave up this wonderful old lipstick case,early 1900's. It is marked Angelus Rouge Incarnation and has wonderful fleur de lis and other fanciful flowers engraved all over it. At first I thought it was a gun shell casing,I'm such a girl.
Thats super cool! Odd thing is, the same thing happened to me about a month back and i thought it was a spent bullet at first but, nope, it was a brass lipstick case with the lipstick still in there. Amazingly, it still spins the lipstick up. Not as cool as yours, though.
As I was pondering what the heck it was I was trying to figure out why in the heck if it was a bullet casing why they would make it so fanciful. Pointman I like your lipstick case as well but not sure rouge and dirt is my color,haha.