Beautiful Old Black Cloth Tape Ball bobbin lace bird or a nice snuff box

or a nice snuff box (or

making me think maybe a snuff box instead

The tradition of carved wooden "Love spoons" apparently dates to mid 1600’s

he was made as a dancing doll

New Jersey

Beautiful Old Black Cloth Tape Ball bobbin lace bird or a nice snuff boxI had one other ball like this several years ago, and learned that sometimes when the leather skin came off a baseball softball, people would wrap the center in black cloth tape like this. To me it's like a more succinct and visceral version of a rag ball, wounded and wound, looking almost as if coated in tar. A beautiful and evocative thing. Approx 3" in diameter and in good, tightly wrapped condition.