Small angled cup attached to a saucer?

Hi All,

Wondering if anyone has come across one of these before (the pen inside is for scale)...



A friend is doing an estate inventory for her employer, but she doesn't know what this is. I suggested it might be a small personal spittoon for wine tastings, or for discretely spitting seeds/bones into at a formal dinner table where spitting may otherwise be frowned upon.

Others have suggested it's a cigar ash receptacle or snuffer. Others still have suggested things like toothipick dispenser, or cigarette dispenser stand.

It's made of metal and is only about 3 inches wide.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

Hi and WELCOME, @Unit25!! It does look familiar, but not sure at the moment what it is.......and it LOOKS silver from here.....is anything written on the bottom??

 

Unless there is a place to strike the match, it is a cigarette holder and the base is the ashtray.
If there is a striker, then it would hold matches.

 

Welcome Unit25.
For small flowers (spray), table display?

 

Welcome to Antiquers Unit25.

 

Hi All, thanks for the welcome and for the replies! I'm not actually at the location where this item was found. I've asked though, and yes it is silver in color, but no, there is no branding or markings of any kind on it.

Clutteredcloset49... there is no striker on it, but a few others have suggested that it's some variation of a tobacco accessory. One friend said it looked like a holder for resting/ashing/extinguishing cigars. Another friend thought it was as you suggested, a little display stand for holding a few cigarettes to offer others (or just have at handy access). How confident are you that this is what it is? Is there a name for this kind of piece? I've looked on Google for all kinds of variations of "smoking ashtray cup holder cigar butt extinguisher display etc..." and haven't seen anything else that looks like this.

Thanks again for the help everyone!

 

I'm not finding any silver or silverplated ones. However that doesn't mean they weren't made.

Here are some Cambridge glass footed cigarette holders. That's why I was saying cigarette.
https://www.google.com/search?q=cam...6wKHbM2BQMQ9C96BAgBEBg&biw=1228&bih=911&dpr=1

 

Though I haven't seen one with that angled design, believe it is, as already suggested, a combination cigarette cup and ashtray, mid 20th century - the 1951 ad below shows one with a more typical cigarette urn:



~Cheryl

 

My first thought (as a former smoker)... that tray is way too wee and no one wants either end of the new cigarettes that close to where the currently smoking cigarette is being tapped.

Which is not to say it's not a cigarette holder/ash tray, just, if it is one, it's a poorly designed one and maybe that's why no one has seen one before.

 

That is today's thinking.

1950s, ashtrays were overflowing. Smokers were in stores throwing the butts on the floor and stepping on them.
Movie theater had lighters going all the time.
It was a different time and a different mindset.

 

I hear ya. But. The item in the ad Cheryl posted works.

The one the OP posted does not. If its job was to function as a cigarette holder/ashtray, I'm sticking with, "it was poorly designed."

 

Truthfully, saw more overflowing ashtrays in later decades than during my childhood in the '60s, when our table was set with silly little individual ashtrays that matched the china, every occasional table had an ashtray of some type, a stocked cigarette box was prominently displayed, and my non-smoker Mom or me emptied the ashtrays into the silent butler often (I still constantly empty ashtrays around smokers, and it even showed up in a 'secret shopper' report when I tended bar.) There were quite a few old ashtrays that had built-in cigarette cups or holders, and not sure I see any more problem with placing a regular cigarette in the tray on this piece than on those tiny little individual ashtrays, and would think it more useful than the freakishly small purse/pocket ashtrays or those that clipped onto the side of a plate.

Still believe it's most likely a combination cigarette cup and ashtray, but perhaps someone will find it had a different purpose...

~Cheryl

 

I promise I know how small and silly ashtrays can get.