Message #41934

[Joey Silver / Si Zhouyi 義周司]

Dear Albert,
 
    Don't like it too much - it is best as an example of what NOT to buy!
Guys, before you buy any piece of tat drilled and with a stopper and spoon and called a snuff bottle:
1. think about what a snuff bottle is for
2. and how it was used
3. and does this example (whichever bottle you are looking at) fulfill the needs of a snuff bottle

Snuff bottles are small bottles designed to hold sniffing snuff, a finely ground powdered tobacco, for breathing into the nose, so that
the snuffer can get a nicotine high. 
 
Snuff bottles are almost invariably carried around, so that the owner can take his snuff with him, and share snuff (and the beauty of his bottle) with friends, and need to be relatively easy to slip in and out of their carrying pouch. Which means they need to be pretty streamlined, and thus, if you look at the vast majority of snuff bottles which were made to be used, they ARE streamlined flasks.

This piece, even if it had been from the 'classical period of snuff taking' (ca.1600-1930), which it is not, would be very clumsy to remove from and return to, such a carrying pouch. Therefore NOT a bottle to be desired, AS A SNUFF BOTTLE.
And even as a carving, I'd still not be impressed.
Sorry,
Joey

Hello,

I think that you have an interesting material made item with a beautiful carved shape; probably this is bone, but in it, is very difficult to see the typical bone holes (may be you can use a magnificent lent), besides the bone of this animal was very big.

I like this unusual snuff bottles!