Inside the Elephant Box - Part 1

There are two layers in my elephant box!

The box was given to my mother and grandmother by friends whose Victorian grandmother had been quite a collector...

As many of you guessed, it contains a lot of sewing equipment (no buttons, Betty, so you can read on!), including this quirky little pin cushion designed like a domino.

The domino pin cusion was in a compartment on the left, and, lifting the little lid above it, I found this leather needle case, the large 'needle' and the two amber rods... even after years of treating this box as my 'rainy day' box, to share with my grandmother, I really don't know everything that's in it!

Juanita makes a key point- not only is the box's inlay ivory, but the needle case seems to have snake skin on it and the 'needle' is almost certainly tortoise shell. My mother taught me to be horrified by the killing, but to respect these antique artefacts - I wonder what the rest of you think?

Just to add to my ethical issues over the ancient massacres of endangered animals, here is a collection of carved ivory bangles my mother bought in charity shops and (one of) my grandmother's crocodile-skin handbags. My mother bought the ivory bracelets because she couldn't bear to see something which represented so much life and work (obviously mainly on the part of the elephant) being sold as if it were plastic. She never wore them.  My grandmother bought the handbag because that was just what you did in those days... what do we do with it all now, I wonder?