Featured Bakelite?

hello all,
I purchased this today, gentlemen said it was bakelite. looks like it was a pin then made into bolo tie, no bolo tie though..
TIA

 

I don't have it in the hand, but from the back it does not look like Bakelite. Those white sections where the plastic is scuffed, just looks off.

 

Tricia, I'm wondering if it might have once been a hair barrette - like this little guy from my own childhood (1950's or so):

 

Not bakelite. This was a molded piece, and I can see where the reins are broken off.

 

it's a bolo tie............

 

Yep - NOW it is - but it looks as if it used to be something else.

 

Yep.......hehe....then I Need Help has already found it !!

 

A search for 'Catalin horse brooch' turns up a number of similar pieces, which all then seem to be for sale as Bakelite. I don't know which of the many proprietary polymers this one is, but someone who specialized in Celluloid & other early plastic jewellery once told me about a piece of mine that the use of plastic for everything but the pin stem itself indicates a WWII time period, when there was rationing of metals.

 

There are many, many 1940s Bakelite horse brooches out there, horses were a popular figural pin in Bakelite. Bakelite will have a carved appearance, as Evelyb points out this one is molded, so probably some base plastic, does not appear to be Celluloid or Catalin.

As a side note was just searching Ebay for horse pins just to see what the going rates were.

I sold this exact style pin in 1990 for $275. This one sold last week for $65. Prices for certain Bakelite pieces are certainly down, if you add inflation on top of that, quite a shift.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/BAKELITE-V...768042?hash=item3b28a1e12a:g:1t8AAOSwvdFcRLbf

 

ty everyone