hair it is

One of the thousands of cool things about dealing in antiques is that you learn stuff.  

For example, what do you think the item above might be?

Nope, not for potpourri, although that was a good guess.

It's actually to hold hair.

Yes, hair.  From the heads of people, but from ladies specifically.

Back in the day, your average lady never got her hair cut, so it grew and grew, and because middle-class Victorian ladies had a lot of time on their hands, they had the bright idea to make jewelry (among other things) from their hair.  And what they would do after giving their crowning glory its nightly 100 strokes was to remove the hair from the brush and store it in pretty little things like the above.  They're called 'hair receivers.'

In my 18 year career I have yet to get a piece of hair jewelry, although I've seen it and there is still lots out there, plus there are people today who are making jewelry and stuff from human hair.

Here's a website for interested parties:  http://www.hairworksociety.org  


It's not heavy on info or pictures, but it is worth a look.