Antique Pressed Seaweed Specimen #5, c. 1850s primitive wooden donut turner It's heavy

It's heavy

self-possessed

but the old paint and softened edges and just all over patina on these is to my eye just spectacularly beautiful

unfurling across and down the pages one after the next in complex multiplication and division problems that remind one how nice it is to now have a calculator

I have to think this once held something very precious

Antique Pressed Seaweed Specimen #5, c. 1850s primitive wooden donut turner It's heavySince finding a bundle of antique seaweed pressings from the Isle of Wight a few months ago, I've been looking for more, and so was thrilled to recently find a portfolio of seven of them. They came nicely preserved inside a large piece of paper with folded edges, with "Specimens of Sea Weeds for Mrs. Bindle" hand written on the front. There is a watermark on one piece dated 1852 with the printer name A. Pirie & Sons, who were located in Aberdeen,