Old Hand-Craft Metal Egg... NEED YOUR HELP!

Wheels · May 1, 2008

This is an estate find. I know it's old, you can see it's hand made. I like to sell it to the highest bidder, but I don't know anything about it. It's around 3 inch tall and 2 1/4 inch fat. 3 1/2 ounce heavy... Brass nails or rivits... I NEED ALL OF YOUR HELP!!!

Thak You

Montana Jim · May 3, 2008

sticksboards said:
it's a very nice handcrafted darning egg, from when people(ladies) would mend socks.

I agree this is a wooden darning egg covered in metals via handcrafted design... I really think it's cool... late 19th or early 20th century.

I think sticksboards nailed the ID.

Rob66 · May 3, 2008

I think that owl from "Clash Of The Titans" lay-ed it. :icon_pirat:

allen_idaho · May 3, 2008

The egg has been crudely hand made. You can see how the metal was formed using a hammer. Rather than plan out the metal needed, the creator just cut and pounded the metal together creating the visible wrinkles and irregular connection points. Due to the fade and minor oxidation marks visible in the photo I would say it's not very old. This truthfully looks like something that somebody cooked up in shop class out of sheer boredom.

Red-Coat · Jan 20, 2024

Just tidying up some blasts from the past (including some very ancient ones), largely for the benefit of anyone searching the site for information.

I don’t think this is an amateur metal class project, nor a darning eggs and I also don’t think it's particularly old. Someone has been churning them out as ‘decorative’ items, but there’s no clue as to who or when. Some come with a small wooden stand. I could see them being sold in ‘New Ager’ gift shops.