No 29. A shepherds crook.... with a difference

 Not quite sure why the delay, but it has been 4 weeks since my last post, which is unusual, so I’m including another selection of some very interesting legs which I hope you will find different.

When I first started collecting legs one of my early aspirations was to find a walking stick and it took 10 years before I found and purchased the first one. Last year in Post number 14 I discussed the first leg I purchased which was the small size that a lady would use.     I have since increased my walking sticks to four  all added in 2019.

                                                                      

This one is my favourite as it is quite clearly the end result of some hard work by its creator.  The handle is hooked over like a shepherd’s crook and is the end result of merging two or three sections of wood.   It is very sturdy and comfortable and on the limited occasions when I have used it, I have found it very supportive.   It does not bend and gives you confidence that it will take your weight when required. (I was birdwatching in Sherwood Forest yesterday – I found myself wishing I had taken it with me!!)

I bought this leg at a Stafford antique Fair in 2019 and was particularly pleased that it was a carved example. This purchase was some compensation for the two carved legs that I saw at a Derby auction a few years earlier, when I was outbid!!

 

From a lengthy 55-inch walking cane, I go now to one of the smallest legs, this one in Mother - of -pearl and measuring 1.5 inches.

                       

This one I also bought in 2019, at an antique fair in Exeter. Neither the vendor nor I knew what it actually was. It is too small to be a pipe tamper, it has no holes to thread a ribbon - it is just a very simple clean leg. Yet another leg enigma!

 

At times particularly during Covid and I got very frustrated in not being able to find and make any additions to my collection. Consequently, I probably allowed myself to stretch my basic rules as to what qualified as a leg. But more than once, Mary has kept me on the straight and narrow with comments such as ”that’s a shoe – it doesn’t count”, or “it must go over the knee”.

I have already written about a glass leg shaped bottle, in a metal high heel frame, that was a  perfume bottle. This is another perfume related bottle.

I saw a TV commercial in 2019 for an expensive perfume by Caroline Herrera. The container was shaped as a very high heel, black, and incorporating an aerosol to spray the perfume. I know this was not quite in line with my leg qualifying rules  but it was sufficiently ostentatious to make it worth stretching a point. Boots in Derby told me that they could not let me have an empty bottle, as they had to account for every bottle, even the bottle used for demonstrating. I did write to the distributors requesting an empty bottle and explaining why. But I got no reply.

Whilst I could have included the bottle by buying a new one, a) it was pricey; and b) (fortunately) Mary did not like the perfume.

Fortunately, I came across another perfume company, not with a leg shaped bottle, but with legs set into the bottle cap. This time Mary liked the perfume, so I bought one and when the bottle was 98% empty it joined my collection. Mary also agreed it met my leg qualifying rules.

                                             

The perfume was called Scandals, bought in 2018.. at St Pancras Station!!

 

The fourth leg is a smoking pipe.  I have previously shown you my Opium pipe, but this one  is for smoking tobacco. However! not in the conventional way.

You can’t tell from a photo, but it is actually only just under 4 inches long.  It is the size that a lady would use, but it was actually used for smoking cigarettes! With the cigarette placed in the bowl and pointing upwards.  

In the first picture you can see there is a garter around the top and I consider the shape a very faithful replica of a female leg.

I bought this leg at a Stafford fair in 2019. But in my 28 posts to date, I have never included a leg with this material. Apart from the bowl, which is wood, the body is made of Vulcanite.

Vulcanite was first made in 1844, and patented by Charles Goodyear, which name you will recognise with the tyre connections and tyres have been made of vulcanite.  It is produced from a mixture of different rubbers and gums, fused (or vulcanised) together under high pressure and with the addition of Sulphur in the process.

Clearly this works for a smoking pipe as it will not melt when smoking, unlike plastic which would.

I hope you enjoy this variety. 

David