French Antique Guessing Game

Guessing Game 2013

 

 

Okay, I am a sucker for French antiques, you know and I know it. It is a passion, it is my drug of choice, it is crazy. Ever since I was a kid I have loved old things. It started at the junk yard. Yes indeed, going to the junk yard, or the dump was always fun. The saying that someone's junk is another person's treasure rang try to me. The junk yard in my childhood home town, use to be a gravel pit, it was big you might say.

Just the other day I heard a tale of someone in Marseille finding an eighteen century silver tea set in a dumpster. Lucky duck! The best thing I ever found at the gravel pit was a foot stool and a bunch of old bottles. 

 

2013 French Antique Guessing Game

 

It is rare that I find something at the brocante that I don't know what it is. So imagine my surprise to find two things within a week! Last week, I found a 1900s cigarette ring to free one's hands to smoke while working at the same time. It took nearly two hundred guesses (Combined guesses from comments and emails.) to find the winning response!

 

This week I found yet another trickster! "What is it?", I had to ask the brocante dealer and when he told me I thought to myself, "Yes indeed this is going on the French Antique Guessing Game!" 

 

Corey Amaro Guessing Game

 

Do you know what this is? I bet you don't. 

 

Guess away in the comment section or by email. The first person to answer "EXACTLY" will win some French chocolate, and the one who has the most creative answer will win some chocolates too.

 

Guessing Game French Antique

 

 

A 1900s silver peacock, about four inches tall, surronded by leaves and flowers. 

What was it used for? Have you ever seen one?

Good luck!

 

P.S. Check my Brocante Online… click here!

 



Comments

58 responses to “French Antique Guessing Game”

  1. Does it hold incense?

  2. An ashtray?

  3. Oil lamp

  4. A salt cellar?

  5. Heather Kathleen

    Ink well?

  6. In Hindu pujas ceremonies camphor is burned in a ceremonial dish for performing aarti. This is a camphor holder for aarti or diya?

  7. Does it hold a thimble?

  8. Susan young

    Beauty spot storage!

  9. I’m guessing it holds thread and the little flower umbrealla is a thread cutter.

  10. Pin cushion?

  11. The little umbrella is used to snuff out the oil lamp or camphor.

  12. A press for molding cookies or chocolates?

  13. Franca Bollo

    Roach clip.

  14. looks like something to burn a drug of choice in, then inhale. my mind had gone blank on drug names: heroin, poppy? hashish? yikes! xo jody/fl

  15. Petite baby baptismal fount?

  16. I think the top “flower” holds needles and the lower bottom “flower” cup holds a thimble so one would always know where to find them when a little mending needed to be done

  17. LOL, you are never gonna let it go! I swear I thought you were talking about a roach as in a bug!

  18. A watering place for butterflies :). If it’s not that, I guess it’s a pill box.

  19. Rose water sprinkler??

  20. I have no idea what it is but it is darling and I want one!

  21. The sculpture is called: Rest Stop
    The scoop holds a tiny baby and the bird is holding a parasol to shield it from the sun. The bird is actually a stork and he is delivering the baby to its new parents. The trip is long so they are taking a break in a meadow hence the flowers…

  22. Some sort of measuring device..
    A scale?

  23. It goes on the cake to hold birthday candles.

  24. Bea Callahan

    toothpick holder – toothpicks are placed in little holed in the flower. When used, they are placed in the small bowl below.

  25. I can see the umbrella has holes in the top so my guess is that the bird is actually a stork, you put diaper pins in the umbrella and the little cup holds some sort of miracle French lavender diaper rash cream.

  26. for earrings, stick pins or hat pins. The holes hold the posts, pins or wires. The bowl holds the post backs.
    a chocolate server. the bowl holds the exact amount of chocolate I should be eating, not the 4 oz at least I eat per day

  27. jend’isère

    A ring holder for the wedding ceremony

  28. I keep seeing this as a hat pin holder.
    Not sure what goes into the little cup though.

  29. Is it a butter press? To make little individual pats of butter with a flower design on the top?

  30. It is a sewing etui. The little cup holds a pin cushion. A thimble and needles can also be stored. Isn’t it beautiful?

  31. Marilyn in Chico, Ca

    A snuff holder ?

  32. My daughter and I guess incense burner. It’s lovely, and I’m dying to know what it is!

  33. Well, my answer is “EXACTLY”
    I’ll be waiting for my chocolate!!
    Tongue in cheek, indeed!
    A bientot!
    Tara

  34. a pedestal for chocolates?

  35. AHA! YOU ARE THE ONE WITH THE APARTMENT! LA CONTESSA!
    Seriously……have you EVER? No. No one has! Can you imagine what Diana Vreeland would have done with this??
    Amazing! Please send me info and pricing about your apartment! I have visions of my daughter (named after my mother); and my granddaughter (named after me!!!SOB!!!)
    doing a shoot in Paris! La Contessa made it possible for all of us!
    (she is such a star!!!)
    And YOU and your apartment are stars, too!Q
    I am coming to join you!!
    Penelope

  36. I think it would be a perfect “beautiful and valuable ring holder”!
    If I had owned it; I would have remembered to put my gorgeous sapphire and diamond ring there!
    and I would not have misplaced it!
    (I was distraught that my son-in-law was so sick!) I misplaced it! I do not believe that anyone who was here would have stolen it……I still think I will find it!
    But that isn’t really what it is; is it?
    If I do find it (my closest friend found a 15 carat diamond ring after 3 and a half years!!)
    I will find one……and buy it!!!
    That person who said the sewing thing…..I would vote for her on “what’s my line”!!
    (anyone old enough to remember that fabulous show??” FABULOUS!!!

  37. BINGO! I THINK THIS IS RIGHT!! SURE SOUNDS RIGHT TO ME!!!

  38. In my opinion; you win for the funniest!
    This is hilarious!

  39. these comments get funnier and funnier! I may copy you if you give me permission way out here in the wild west in California!
    Some great antiques come to Santa Barbara because their owners retire in Chicago…..all over the East……with gorgeous antiques and all that goes with them….they move here for the weather!
    What a terrific and educational game!!
    Penelope

  40. I think it is a watering can.

  41. It is an incense burner. Thanks for the game!

  42. I don’t care what it does, I just want it. My friends and I are called the ”peacocks”. Thus I must own it. I love the needle and thimble idea, though. Corey, you must be chuckeling.

  43. Does the upper flower that the peacock is holding have a hinge? Looks as if that folds down into the wee bowl. Hmm? More pondering.

  44. Marie-Noëlle

    I would say a sweet or chocolate holder.
    And if little fingers venture to it without any permission, the peacock drops the lid…

  45. You all are so funny. I’m going on the wild side today. Ladies didn’t usually take snuff but I’m going to call this the most discreet ladies snuff box in existence. And because there’s chocolates at risk, I’m hazarding a second guess – very fancy salt cellar.

  46. Bird feeder.

  47. A spool holder.

  48. Mary Jane Johnson

    I think it was used to hold salt. The lid opens and closes to protect the salt. A dining table would probably have several of these for the guests to use.

  49. HAT PINS………looks like there are holes on top??
    As for the junkyard………HA my neighbor use to go when we were small and I loved that too!Did you collect old bottles as a child?I did………..I use to dig in the dirt around our house to find them!!
    XX

  50. Hi Corey! Is the French Antique Piano Music Book in your brocante still available?

  51. I had previously guessed thimble. Perhaps needles already threaded with different colors of thread were ‘held’ in the holes on top and the thimble in the wee basin. For use during an embroidery project where different color threads were in use.

  52. I think it would sit on a vanity somewhere to hold a child’s hat .

  53. Hi Kate, Yes it is because I did not add a BUY now button. I’ll do it now.
    Thanks for pointing that out to me!

  54. Ed in Willows

    Inscent burner ?

  55. a pincushion was suppose to land in the little dish while the pins are stuck in the umbrella. xxpeggybraswelldesign.com

  56. Franca Bollo

    Fairy commode. Where they sit, using their roach clip, while pooping glitter and unicorns.

  57. It’s a tea caddy! To hold your steaming aromatic tea leaves/bag while you sip your perfectly steeped caramel chai tea.

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