No 12. Ceramic Legs? I’m hooked!!

Welcome to Post No 12.

The last one, the “naff” collection, was on  18^th June, and whilst I did not expect to write another post until July, I felt I should slip one in before the end of the month, to warn my thousands of followers, that automated e-mails to registered recipients, will cease at 30th June 2021, due to the appropriate widget being withdrawn. So this post WILL be circulated but from July 1, if you wish to watch my leg articles, you will need to log into my blog, at Alleslegtree.blogspot.com.  And thanks for following me whilst you could.

In contrast to the previous naff legs this time I have 3 interesting antiques.

Having nine examples in my collection, it is time to talk about one of the legs that features in the banner heading on my posts - a Button hook, also known as a Boot hook. Let’s be clear, not Boat Hooks, Not Botox!!, but Boot Hooks.  Whether it is Boot or Shoe is dependent on the size of the item of footwear but either way both hooks are used in exactly the same way. 

 

                                                                   

This is a nice example of a ladies antique shoe hook. It is in stainless steel, very clear detail but no markings. It was bought in a private deal in 2017 when I bought a collection of 9 hooks from a Daily Telegraph Reader. That came about following a letter of mine published in the paper, requesting suggestions for what I could call myself instead of a “Leg Collector” following which the button hook collector got in touch saying that he wanted to dispose of most of his button hook collection, but he thought his 9 examples in leg shapes could be of particular interest to me. He was right!!  

Buttons only came into use in the 13th century, and the first reference to Button hooks was in the early 17th Century, c1616.. The popularity tended to wain in the 1920’s but even today people with difficulties in doing up buttons (arthritis) can still find a simple button hook, a very useful aid. Each tool consists of a hook fixed to a handle which is used to assist with threading  buttons through buttoned gloves, buttoned shoes or boots, or other clothing

The point to particularly understand is, not as may be thought that the hook pulls a lace, but the hook is solely to pull a button. The hook is inserted from the front, THROUGH the buttonhole, where it grips and pulls the button back through the button hole. Thus the button hole must be wide enough (or the hook must be small enough) for the hook to carry out it’s intended manoeuvre. 

There is a vast variety of styles and sizes and materials in hooks, some straight, some hinged which fold up, and include many different decorative finishes. But as this picture shows the size of the hook is more or less constant. The overall length of Hooks can range from 2ins to 8 ins  -  the extremes in my collection.

 

                                                                                          

This picture shows the hook of all my 9 items, all virtually the same size.  Did you but know it, No 5 is the smallest and No 9 the largest!!

                                                                                      

 Ladies hooks are usually quite small and dainty, and would have been carried attached to a chatelaine. Conversely, men’s boots are invariably longer, and made with tougher material, and with a greater number of button holes, their hooks tend to be sturdier.

My recent search on the internet for button and boot hooks identified no examples of leg shaped hooks nor where there any on e-bay!  Mine would therefore appear to be rare. I will show you others in due course.

 

The next leg is one of the rare legs in my collection that is not a usable item. It is a piece of Porcelain bought in 2013 at a large Antique centre in Cheshire, with the grand name, Dagfields Antiques Emporium. (Coincidentally it is where my generous neighbour bought the bottle stopper with the booted feet, covered in a post earlier this month.)

                                                                                    

 

This pair of legs was considered to be part of a doll, probably German, and although there are no markings, two holes on each leg suggests that something would have been threaded through, presumably so that the legs would hang below a body, and underneath the dolls clothing. The pottery is a lovely white porcelain, with black painted shoes, of a style and heel height to indicate a female.

I had in mind a particular leg to include as the third item, but what I have just written has diverted my thinking to another piece of porcelain!!

                                                                                                                                            

(Not very photogenic, so 2 different angles!) I found this leg at a  Stafford Antique Fair and took some convincing that it was a leg!  But Hansons agreed with me that it was Porcelain, and was in fact a very rudimentary Pipe Tamper.

 I don’t expect to find many more porcelain legs, so having these two are interesting inclusions in the collection.

Just to repeat after this post there will be no more automated mailed copies, so you will need to log on to the blog if you want to keep up with my fortnightly posts...... which WILL still continue!!

David