Collected over 30 years ago when I was 'into' Japanese Netsuke and added a few of these into a display cabinet with them. Now selling all I had collected in a single offering. The beautiful trousse or scabbard on each is undamaged shell, cognac to chocolate on 4 and a rare green tortoise shell on the 5th set. These are eating utensils, a trousse or travel set, hung on a toggle tucked under a belt or sash and on the other end would be a netsuke to keep the toggle from slipping out of place. In the final image, a few lesser netsuke (I sold off my excellent ones years ago) which remained with these in a small crate. You notice that along with a pair of chopsticks there is a long knife with the old steel blades, usually with corrosion of age. Normally sold as singles and ranging around $500 each, I'm grouping the 5 I own in one offering. Full measurements noted on photos.
Very good to excellent condition for age and type, these date late 18th to earliest 19th century, Chinese origin. As noted, the green set is rarer and one can find them in museum collections. One just like ours is in the MET, NYC.. The green one and 3 of the 4 cognac to chocolate colored tortoise shell sets are complete with both chopsticks and the knife. There is 1 cognac to chocolate colored trousse which is missing 1 chopstick. The sticks are mostly bone, with 1 set in wood. The old steel knife blades do have corrosion commensurate with age. No bug bites or cracks, losses to the tortoise shell. Beautiful display pieces!
IMPORTANT NOTE regarding antique tortoise shell or ivory: We are great supporters of protection for endangered species in our modern world. We never buy or sell anything 100 years or newer; we donate to anti-poaching organizations; we don't hunt; we conserve in ways that impact global warming (we're totally solar at home), knowing those measures also protect the animals in the wild today. We also recognize the vast cultural history we preserve with our care and reverence for these antique objects, and agree with CITES that objects over 100 years of age have nothing whatsoever to do with species depletion in our current world.
Our offering exceeds the age limitation of "more than 100 years of age", and is well within the exemption for CITES regulation. If imported, met the CITES regulation. This item will be handled and shipped from our Utah business, and is not available for shipment internationally, nor within the USA to California, NY, Nevada, Hawaii, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington if it contains ivory, sorry. Please see our small print for more details.
