Tiny Carved Wooden Skull Paper Knife greyhound plate as I wanted it so

as I wanted  it so much

I have a soft spot for old folky inlaid frames like this

called "yin-de"

produced by Gerstendorfer Bros New York

Tiny Carved Wooden Skull Paper Knife greyhound plate as I wanted it soI find this rather a haunting little carving, I assume meant to serve as a letter opener, and certainly with well more than a hundred years on it I have to think it has opened some letters bearing pretty sad news. The skull itself is tiny, but reads very clearly as a skull, which I've shot with some magnification to get a better sense of its details, which make it look a bit more crude than with viewed by the eye alone. Pretty amazing. 4" long; skull