Description

Inlaid Wooden Letter Opener | 1960s-70s

Here is a piece that is both fun and functional! This letter opener has been skilfully hand-crafted from a selection of woods: teak for the main body, with the casings and rear of the handle faced in a lighter wood and inlay work delicately picked out in a variety of lighter and darker veneers. The front of the handle features a smiling stylised Siamese cat, with the silhouette of a little black cat on the rear.

This is possibly Italian and dates from the 1960s or 1970s, but we haven’t seen another that is anything like this so we offer this only as our ‘best guess’.

It is around 20cm long and measures a little over 2cm across at the top of the handle.

While this is quite a sturdy little letter opener or paper knife, we wouldn’t suggest regular heavy use as the wooden blade tapers to quite a fine point. It would also function as a page turner or page marker, or simply as a pleasingly decorative piece of treen to add to your collection.

Presented in a gift box.

Condition Report: This piece is in excellent overall condition, with a smooth, shiny finish and no nicks or dents in the blade. There is a very small area of roughness on the rear of the handle, but we believe this to be a minor flaw in the original application of the varnish rather than later damage.

As with all vintage and antique pieces it will bear some minor marks from the passage of time, but these are part of its history and we note nothing that distracts from its overall appearance.

We describe all items as clearly and honestly as we can, but please ensure that you view all of the product images in order to best appraise the piece yourself.