Featured Shell ID Pendant & Purse

Please can anyone ID the shells used in these pieces and approximately when they were made please?
1) Sweet unhallmarked silver shell locket/ box ( don’t know what it would be called?). Around 4.5cm long.
2) Unhallmarked silver pendant. MOP?Lily of the valley?. 5.5cm
3) Very rough white metal shell MOP? purse.
Thankyou

 

Having just looked at my own photos the pendant is stamped on the silver down at the bottom! Almost unreadable but it’s there.

 

Hard to know what kind of shells as they look like they've been cut and polished

 

Not Lilyof the Valley, my botany brain will wake up in a moment and remind me what it is.

These have been made since the 18th C at least, and still are. Modern ones seem to come from Indonesia. The fabric lined purse looks to have a bit of age. Box looks recent. Pendant style is 70s or 80s ish.

 

Agree, now I've looked. Maybe just an 'artistic impression' of a random plant.

 

This one



is made from the 2 sides of a clam shell with the dull outer layer stripped off, leaving the nacreous layer. Think the other is also clam, but maybe with the edges of each 'valve' ground down to make it flatter. Is the face of the pendant also convex?

 

Thankyou

Yes

 

Then guessing the pendant is also a section of clam shell. The play of color is more subdued than you see with abalone & you can see how similar it is to the other pieces.

BTW, I love the shell purses & have to stop myself from buying them. I have 2 that are modern, a small one that fits inside of the larger one, a gift from a friend, & then another with an industrial strength silver-tone frame, but no lining.

 

Thankyou

 

Have seen the boxes, coin purses, pillboxes, etc. made from all types of shells, including clams, oysters, scallops, limpets, and portions of cowries, nautilus, turban and abalone shells - pretty sure the larger purse is cut from abalone, the smaller box from turban shell, and the pendant, eh, bit confused by what appears to be a dark back (is it flatter than it appears in pic?)

~Cheryl

 

Here's a new turban shell box: https://www.boneroom.com/store/p3869/Polished_turbo_shell_pill_box.html

~Cheryl

 

The back of the pendant is slightly convex, dark and light brown with ridges running across it.

 

Some of these are made from clam shells; but one of the ones above is actually from a kind of snail shell, called a turbo or turban...as pointed out above...(totally cross-posted, sorry, but here's the photo)
compare https://www.boneroom.com/store/p3869/Polished_turbo_shell_pill_box.html and

 

Thankyou. They are very pretty.