Featured What is this antique brooch made from?

Apologies - see the size was mentioned earlier.

Vegetable ivory buttons can date back to the mid 19th century - those dark spots are typical, and cut steels were a fairly common decoration on fancy buttons of many materials, including vegetable ivory, so a brooch wouldn't be surprising...

~Cheryl

 

Dyed and carved vegetable ivory button with a single cut steel:





https://www.ebay.com/itm/Wonderful-...713232?hash=item52317ed250:g:i6YAAOSwTjdeeAfs









~Cheryl

 

Ooh Cheryl, that second last pic looks similar in terms of colour and shine for the front of the brooch and similar brown spots throughout too, which is also something I was confused over!

I haven't heard the term vegetable ivory before either, so that's a new one for the books!

The mention of the loupe earlier gave me an idea and I have been off trying to get some close ups through the loupe and I think in my pics of around the steel you can see the same cracking as in that button you shared! Also under the steel a slightly lighter brown area coming through which isn't shiny, tried to show but difficult to see even without the camera!

Also tried some pics of the back too. The two darkest spots on the back have cracks on them, as can be seen in the close up of one of them below too!