SOLD Very Intense,Very Smoked Antique Meerschaum Pipe Bowl with Black Glass Eyes and Evocative Repairs vintage portrait painting This "ball" puzzle

This "ball" puzzle

I never paid much attention to stone (marble) fruit until seeing an incredibly fine (and very expensive) antique sliced pear with seeds not long ago

It dates to the 1860s or 70--previously manufactured by John S Hodgkinson of Philadelphia

My favorite thing: written in pencil in big letters by a young hand is "Dominoes Double Nine

SOLD Very Intense,Very Smoked Antique Meerschaum Pipe Bowl with Black Glass Eyes and Evocative Repairs vintage portrait painting This "ball" puzzleI am pretty certain this pipe bowl is 19th century meerschaum (meerschaum is a soft mineral called sepiolite, found in Europe, often carved into smoking pipes and other decorative objects) but the patina on it (if unsmoked it would appear white) is so dark (deeper than I have ever seen before), it is a bit hard to tell. And it is that near blackening from use, and the softening of the features from handling, and the wired repairs to the sides, that