Featured Leather handbag ??

This looks antique but maybe it's not?

The faded and torn silk liner on the inside makes me think old, but the outside looks so... Can't tell if the stitches are hand-done...

Metal plate with (artificial?) blue stone on both sides. The underside of both plates is green patina, suggesting copper content?

Anyway, I'm confused and would greatly appreciate anyone's help.

 

The stitching you've featured looks machine-made to me, but that could be so for well over 100 years, I believe...

 

looks like a gal carried her gun in it !!!!!!!!

 

The silk inside is shattered; that takes a decent amount of time, generally. I'd be surprised if this was less than 100 years old.

 

I like the outside. Very stylish.

 

Beauty-Clean design,would you call this Arts & Crafts from either a trade school or commercial firm ?
Keep looking for that elusive mark.

 

Cool find! I'd put in my 2 cents as saying that it is Arts and Crafts era - late 1910's to 1920's. Seems simple enough to reline... Great eye!
Cheerio,
Leslie

 

It's only the old weighted silk that shatters. In the late 19th/early 20th centuries, it was common to add metal salts to silk to give it a desirable weight and glossiness. Over time, the salts cause the silk fibers to become brittle and fragile. "Shattered" silk has a shredded appearance and generally happens in one "direction". This is due to the warp and weft threads having different tensions and therefore absorbing the salts differently and subsequently degrading at different rates.
Weighted silk was rarely used after the 1930s/40s.
So I suppose that does help with dating the purse.

 

Personally, have some doubt this bag is antique. Have you done a burn test on the lining or cord?

https://www.threadsmagazine.com/app/uploads/2013/06/T168_Burn_Test_Chart.pdf

~Cheryl

 

The lining looks older than dirt, or at least older than Mom; my mother is 95.

 

Bless you, Both!

 

Thanks!

 

I have since sold it along to its next owner. Got about 5x what I paid, if I remember right.