Hello Brian, Alex and everyone I believe hand carved/decorated bobbins were produced more for sentimental reasons, often made or decorated by, and for, a loved one and thus were possibly kept safe when collections were disposed of.
In the last few years I have tried to concentrate on collecting, and comparing, whenever possible East Midlands bobbins of this genre. I’ve found two possible makers producing hand carved bobbins in quantities and possibly commercially. I’ve also found that many lathe turned examples have later hand decoration. At this point I should point out that unfortunately very few are dated, also the only possible way of identifying is in comparing the shape of the head and/or tail etc,. The High Wycombe area of South Buckinghamshire is well know, even today, for the production of chairs therefore any discarded offcuts would have been extremely useful to bobbin turners such as the Saunders family of Waddesdon and accounts for the variety they used to produce the wooden bobbins they specialised in, I’ve only found one bone example made by them. ‘Pocket knife’ bobbins are not necessarily the earliest, I have one dated mid eighteen hundreds and another very late 1914 example. Diana Smith in Northamptonshire > - > To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: > unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to > [email protected]. Photo site: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/ - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
