Handmade Woven Leather Covered Cigarette Tin pig shaped immediately recognizable

immediately recognizable

it almost seems like hematite

On the underside is glued a heavy lead weight

Very thin-walled

It's a vintage 1:10 scale model of the 15th c Gutenberg printing press

Handmade Woven Leather Covered Cigarette Tin pig shaped immediately recognizableThis is a really lovely old hand stitched leather (cowhide I believe) covered Waverly cigarette tin, with hand woven details on the lid and sides. It is very faintly stamped Sierra Leone on the bottom and I believe dates to the 1920s or so. (I can just picture Ernest Hemingway bringing this back from one of his African hunting trips.) These seem to have been a handicraft specific to West Africa; I have found a few other examples, but few as great