An antique horn snuff box decorated with a scene of Lyme Regis on the lid. Inside the box are two tiny pieces of paper with the most miniscule 'writing'. The 2 pieces of text were made by someone called William Rastrick. They purport to be The Lords Prayer, Psalm 117 & The ten commandments. Having examined them through a magnifyer, they are not really legible but they look impressive. I'd say the papers are early 19th century (or earlier) as they use the f form of a s. The smaller of the two pieces claims that the writing is 'wrote within ye compafs of a silver groat'.
The horn box has a mistake in the name Lyme Regis. It is actually written as LYN= REGIS. It's possible that it was decorated by a piece worker, working from home in a cottage industry. Perhaps they couldn't actually write & were attempting to copy the name from something. The M became an N & the diagonal marks of the E became =
Both the box & the writing pieces are fascinating & I'm selling them together as that is how they came to me.
