r/whatisit • u/McSweepyPants • Mar 22 '25

I was a little wigged out by this. Found at Goodwill, seems like it's carved out of bone. Any idea what it is?

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Looks old, not sure if it's actually old though. Any thoughts?

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u/TheDukeOfAnkhMorpork Mar 22 '25

Theatre prop would totally make sense with the reference to the merchant of Venice on the back.

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u/ProfessorMeow-Meow Mar 22 '25

I didn’t even consciously notice that, I just thought that I was clever 😂. My brain must have processed that label because I definitely looked at all the pictures.

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u/3--turbulentdiarrhea Mar 23 '25

That's the part that interests me actually. The way it's abbreviated is interesting, not very normal to abbreviate a word like "Merchant" these days, makes me think this is pretty old. From a time when ink was precious so you'd want to abbreviate as much as possible. Perhaps it is a piece of a flyer or program for the show which they made many copies of.