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This is 7 cm approx. 3". Date unknown but I think 19th century is likely. Is there a way of telling the age of something like this? Idon't particularly like the tiger's eye stopper but that could be a later addition. The stem of the spoon is extant, made of bone I think, but the bowl is missing. Any thoughts or comments welcome. Thanks in advance
Sally

It is hard to date stone snuff bottles. There are a lot of fakes and modern knock-offs today. With a hard stone bottle like yours, the work to form it and hollow it often exceeds the profit to be gained when sold.

The link below is an article to give you some background.

When buying a stone snuff bottle, I always look at the workmanship and the beauty of the piece. See the examples below.

Cheers,
Stan



URL Title :Snuff Bottles

Thank you Stan, your snuff bottles are pretty stunning.I've noticed in the descriptions of some of the better stone bottles online it says 'well-hollowed out' so an indicator of finer craftsmanship. My bottle does have a recessed foot, I can't really tell if it's well hollowed out but the surface is uneven, not smooth and shiny like other agate bottles. I think I'll assume it's a lower quality example unless proven otherwise. Thanks again, Sally

Well hollowed out refers to the cavity in the bottle. The worst case is just a straight drill hole under the cap. If it is well hollowed, the cavity includes the shoulders of the bottle so that the internal cavity follows the form of the bottle. You can imagine how hard it would be to hollow out the shoulders of the bottle manually with hand tools. Looking at your last picture, the light from behind makes it looks like yours is well hollowed.

Cheers,
Stan

Thanks Stan , you're right , it's quite see through around the shoulders and yes, I can see that would be difficult to achieve .
Thank you and best wishes
Sally

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