Old Maid Prize, Black Ink Drawing Signed F.A, 1892 handmade jackstraws with a nice red velvet-covered

with a nice red velvet-covered writing slope inside

it was somewhat tarnished when I found it

holding the gull firmly in place

It features beautiful Spencerian + Fraktur headers throughout plus tons of geometric diagrams carefully drawn with compass and ruler

I'm not at all a photography expert

Old Maid Prize, Black Ink Drawing Signed F.A, 1892 handmade jackstraws with a nice red velvet-coveredAt first I thought this antique merit award type drawing was a snarky, or tongue in cheek portrait of an old spinster, which, as a happily unmarried woman in her late 40's, appealed to me personally, but then I realized it was surely a prize for the winner of what must have been a fierce Old Maid card game, or maybe long stretch of games. And indeed, Old Maid in its current incarnation dates to the early 1880s, popular in England as well as in the U.