No 6. Three of a - different - kind!

 I think we will have a bit of variety this week, so the legs I will write about are those for which I only have one example.

We’ll start with a Mother of Pearl (MOP) item, probably c1900 and thus an antique. This is a fully functional pair of folding scissors, the legs being sharp steel with a layer of MOP covering each of the legs.  I had seen a similar pair at a quality fair at Buxton, but I was deterred by the price. I bought these at a Derby University Antique Fair in 2009, and these were only the 4^th item at the start of my collection.

When opened the scissors are just 3ins long, but fold down to 2ins. One of the blades has a ridged edge which is in fact a nail file, and which works very well as such. The scissors/leg is a well designed and clever device, and has a piece of flexible metal to facilitate the legs springing in and out when being used as scissors. The word PATENT is stamped on one of the blades.

Away from the blades, it has a foldable catch to hold the 2 blades/legs tight when folded, and there is a single loop suggesting that it could have been attachable to something quite possibly a ladies chatelaine.  A chatelaine was a belt with a series of hooks and worn by  women in the 19^th Century. The belt was worn at the waist and hung on the hooks were such items as keys, watches, tools, thimbles, vinaigrettes etc. There are records of women in Roman times, wearing chatelaines, porting for example,  nail cleaners, tweezers and ear scoops!

I found a similar leg for sale on e-bay, in 2012, for £94 but not with Mother-of-Pearl handles.

The second "leg" in my collection this week is a most interesting and unusual item. I have quizzed a number of antique dealers and most of them have not been able to give me a confident answer!

I bought this leg at Stafford in 2015 for the princely price of £10, and as you can see it is very s rudimentary. It is just 4.5ins end to end, leg shaped, with a heel, and carvings looking like lace carving. I can tell you that the narrowing top is the mouth piece.  enough to confirm that it is a pipe

However, there is no pipe bowl, just a 5mm diameter hole on the top of the foot. If I blow down the mouthpiece, air does come out so it has an airway right through.

So the best opinion (and Charles Hanson agreed when I showed it to him last week) is that it is an Opium pipe but it is an absolutely basic version, not as elaborate as some exotic opium pipes can be.  One dealer suggested that it was missing a funnel/bowl that went inside the hole on the top of the foot to apply the drugs for smoking. Even the material is questionable. Probably treen - it does look a bit like Bakelite but I think this would be unlikely – Bakelite was first patented in 1907, and I believe this pipe to be older than that.       

A leg with all sorts of questions.   I will continue to show it to dealers and see if I can get an accurate explanation, in which case look out for a late post!!

The third leg is evidence of how careful scanning of antique stalls can bring up rewards of the least expected!   This HAS, so far, got to be the current qualifier for "naff". Bought on e-bay in 2019 with the help of my daughter, this is a toothbrush in the shape of a leg!! It is 6.5ins long, and has the brand name on the package,  “Beauty 55”.

This leg is further from it’s origin than any other leg in my collection (as far as I know!!).   It was made in Taiwan by a company, I-TA Industrial Co.Ltd, and I traced an identical one for sale on a website in Hawaii. The website owner MaiAloha has a business dealing in vintage, antique and collectable items.  The site states that similar items are sold out, but I am unsure whether the quoted sales of 350, is of toothbrushes, or any sales the business can make…I suspect the latter.

This vintage toothbrush is cetainly a "Beauty". The toothbrush handle is a lovely shaped female leg in yellow pearl plastic with white bristles. It comes with an original box and is in excellent condition and never used. Rare.

There you are for this post... a nice variety of Legs, none of which I imagine you would have anticipated!!