antique toothpick

Does anyone Know anything about antique toothpicks?

We have a silver toothpick that has been in the family now for many years, apparently my grandmothers brother ahd this given to him whilst in a deep relationship with a woman from the London (england) area, who told him that the

toothpick had been in her family for generations and that originally it was from France and allegedly was in the ownership of Napoleon Boneparte (!). We have never been able to corroborate any of the details of the story as all paties are now dead.

If you have just any information on silver toothpicks, though, I would be very greatful.

Description of toothpick:

Solid silver, Appx 45mm long (extended), cross section shows the body to be hollow and hexagonal in shape. A large ruby is set into one end (Appx 6mm dia.) The toothpick itself is extended by a small lever set into a slot in the body. The body has engraving to the sides.

Many thanks

Mark

Mark, You might have done better to just say, 'I have an 'old' toothpick' and see what happens. The more I read of your posted 'story' the more skeptical I became. You mean Napoleons' dead? But , really, it belonged to someone that was old and they got it from some other old person who had a friend from England that knew someone in France and Napoleon was in France at one time and therefore..........You know,I have an old brass drinking cup that I got from an old person that visited Israel and they got it years ago from an old person that had walked on a desert once and the name Jesus came up and something about quail or grail and now I wonder if...............Hmmmmm

Doug W. ~>*) Big Fish EAT Little Fish (*<~

I know what he means, though. When my grandfather, George Roy Clough, was a young movie projectionist and newsreel photog in Galveston, a teenager named King Vidor wanted to learn how to shoot cine film. My grandfather built him a hand-cranked cine camera by installing various camera parts in a wooden box. That's what the great director King Vidor learned to shoot moving pictures with. Vidor credits him with teaching him how to shoot film in Vidor's autobiography, 'A Tree is a Tree'. Now, from my grandfather's estate, I have a very basic cine camera built in this way. The box was obviously some kind of file box. My grandfather owned more than a dozen hand-cranked cameras, including some of the finest French products. He would have no need to build a rough cine camera from scratch. Is this King Vidor's first movie camera sitting in my bookcase? I'm going to try to get someone at the Harry Ransom center at the University of Texas where Vidor's estate is archived and see if perhaps there is an old photo among his papers of him and his first camera. At least I have some chance of answering the question. Hardly the holy grail, and never for sale, but what a piece of cinema history if that's the camera. I wish I had inquired of Vidor before he died some years ago.

Gerald, You have a much better chance authenticating your camera than figuring out who picked their teeth 200 years ago...and you don't have to track it through 2 continents,3 countries and a dozen mouths......<g>

Doug W. ~>*) Big Fish EAT Little Fish (*<~

Well, I'm fortunate to live just 30 miles from Austin. UT buys absolutely tons of old stocks and collections. Someone who worked there once told me some years ago that they bought old glass plate negative so fast that they just stored them, and when they filled that room they locked the door and started filling the next one, and that there wasn't anything like the personnel or time to catalog them. I suspect Vidor's material has been better curated, so we'll see. I'll report back.

I just wish I had been old enough and known enough when my grandfather died and they cleaned out the house. He had been in radio all his life, building the first commercial station in Galveston in his livingroom in 1920, was a newsreel photographer in the hand-cranked days (they VERY carefully dumped TRUNKS full of old newsreel clips on the old nitrate base), was a flying instructor, hypnotist, mayor, inventor, etc. I mean, how many people leave behind a Wright radial aircraft engine and an ancient Indian motorcycle in there garage when they die? The old ad materials accumulated in the radio-TV shop he and my father operated would be worth a bunch today. At least I have his (and my great-grandfathers) rolltop desk, some of his cameras and other momentos like some corespondance with another inventor who was also working on a color movie process before there was color film by shooting through and projecting back through a filter with concentric rings of primary colors using black and white film. (Apparently it works when everything is exactly right.)

Enough personal.

Ronnie

Gerald, I can't believe you've not already done all that research! You've got proof of provenance if this IS the same camera

hey you know ,.............I have a brass cup as well...........hmmmm

Just wondered if anyone knew anything about toothpicks!..

A pointed instrument (as a slender tapering piece of wood) for removing food particles lodged between the teeth. The word itself in use from the 15th century, but I would imagine used for that purpose since the dawn of man ( ... and woman) suppose it must be one of those things we never know who invented.

They come in all shapes sometimes disguised as another object or function or an intentional addition to another object. They have been made in a number of materials, can be highly decorated and enriched with gems, gold, silver, ivory etc or take on a novelty aspect (unusual design or originality) ......or just plain and simple. They cover many centuries and many styles, they are collectible little things with a wide following, they range in price from a few pounds to several, several pounds, depending on ..... well depending on much the same reasons as just about anything else.

Ronnie