SOLD 4:48, Unusual, Excellent, Rather Mysterious Old Painted Velvet Clock Pin Cushion curative recipes I would think 1840s-50s on

I would think 1840s-50s on this

with general wear all over and surface dings here  and there

but in the case of this one it is completely about its formal properties--most immediately that hand printed paper cover

There is a small hole in the top of the wood and another directly below it in the bottom

I presume done by a child named Dora long ago--the watercolored letters spelling out "A Merry Xmas" certainly seem so--but what a fantastically elegant frog (toad

SOLD 4:48, Unusual, Excellent, Rather Mysterious Old Painted Velvet Clock Pin Cushion curative recipes I would think 1840s-50s onThis struck me as so unusual when I found it, and indeed I can't find any other example of old pin cushion with a stencil painted clock face like this out there anywhere. And what to make of the very specific position of the hands, marking 4: 48 precisely? One sometimes sees 19th century pin cushions made to celebrate a birth (particularly with messages spelled out in stick pins); perhaps the time here marks the moment of a child's arrival in the