Very old ? ball-head walking stick
 

not exactly 'ethnographic' unless you consider it's possible generic european or eastern ethnicity.

i have agentleman's cane/walking stick with a spherical ball end and a wooden haft of unknown wood. it was billed as bamboo but there are no joints and it appears solid, no teardrop shape like rattan/malacca. it appears varnished and the haft has a fair number of minor dents and spots over it. the ball and part of the upper haft is covered in silver, which is worn thru from use in a number of spots exposing the wood ball interior underneath. there is no hallmarks on the silver. the silver also has a fair number of very minor dings and dents. there is a burned in number 1759 near the top. there is a brass ferrule at the ground end end. all in all it looks very much like a knobkerry with a smallish ball head.

it is 87cm long, haft is 2.5cm in dia tapering slightly to the end ferrule, the ball is just under 4.5cm in dia., and it weighs 340 gm.

now the questions. thanks in advance for any info, kibbitzing, speculations, and learned wisdom from the experts in all things wooden and metal we have on tap here, etc.

any idea on what kind of wood may have been used?
when did the hallmarking system start?
could it be eastern silver, unhallmarked?
where could it originate from?

and the key question - is 1759 the date if manufacture? does the font look realistic for the period? it's in good shape for being that old.

p.s. -it's my go to cane for those early morning dog walks when my knees are a bit pained, and i need something to keep me from falling over picking up after the dog. also would be handy for those things that go bump in the night on evening walks.

Still it falls into the scope of Miscellania collectors trend. I just wonder how you managed to upload such 'gigantic' pictures ;).

Sure is silver ?

I would doubt that :o .

Man, you are getting old. How about applying some lubricant in the joints ? ;)

No, the characteristics are late 19 th/early 20 th C.

Early canes have a much longer brass shoe with a steel bottom plate.

I have a cane with provenance to the 1780's that I'll try to dig out and illustrate.

i thought good vintage port was a universal lubricant... :D

the pics are at the limit for attachments at 1280 pixels wide, so as to provide the most detail. i run them thru an size optimizer that cuts the file size quite a bit as well for easier uploads, downloads by slow connections and storage on the forum server. ;) i was going to crop them in height but got side tracked.

my camera can go up to about 4k pixels (8meg sensor) wide HiDef* but most forum software cannot handle that.

*- for the techies, i can take 3 (or more) photos - from a tripod at +1, 0,-1 exposure then merge them to extend the dynamic range & detail. best done outdoors with good lighting. seems like every time i think about that tho, it's raining or cloudy.

the bottom ferrule is brass, 4.5cm long with a worn steel shoe with a dark black patination. the steel is quite rounded, not flat. held on with a deliberate dimple (and some glue i suspect).

the ball end covering does not pass my crude silver test. :(

actually, i suspect the number is a model number or serial no. of some sort, rather prominent tho.

the late 19c is more likely i think.

Indeed the limit allowed is 1280, but it needs some side scrolling to visualize the whole image, thus loosing some instant impact. Same goes for the height, although this is not often a problem, as usually pictures are more in the 'landscape' perspective. I also use plenty boost for picture taking (3648x2736 in a 18 megapixel camera) but then i edit them, by first cropping all the blank space and then resize them to 1100X600 pixel, therefore obtaining an image that appears full size in the (laptop) screen. Effort goes for the cutting of all waste space around the object so that, when resize the picture, it still shows a decent quality. Of course this is only a personal perspective :cool: .