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The Collation

“What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?”: March 2014

Another month, another Crocodile Mystery. What might this be?

Mystery Image

As always, please use the Comments section for wild guesses, brilliant insights, etc.

Comments

I’ve heard of books and papers being used to pass coded messages made from pinpricks in the paper.

Elspeth — February 27, 2014

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I think it’s sand covered mussels.

Carol — February 27, 2014

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I see tiny stiches of a black thread, at the back of an embroidered book cover.
my guess is most certainly erroneous, ‘mais quand même’ …

elisabeth bruxer — February 27, 2014

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It looks like some sort of device using punctures along a line to allow powder or ink to pass through and transfer the outline of a drawing to another surface.

Tom Reedy — February 27, 2014

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Tom Reedy’s answer is verrrrry close….

Erin Blake — February 27, 2014

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I think it’s parchment that’s been eaten by the parchment mites that gave Niles Crane his allergy.

Debbie — February 27, 2014

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I don’t know how “verrrrry close” to a stencil it is, but it reminds me of some old lampshades I’ve seen.

John W. Kennedy — February 27, 2014

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Tom’s idea was my first thought too, except that I can’t see a cartoon/outline image that is being transferred and the pricks are obviously coming from the side we’re looking at. Hmmm… Is it maybe a piece of lining/pattern paper from a patchwork shape or onlay of some kind? or a gilding pattern?

Jan Kellett — February 27, 2014

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My other guess is a tattoo pattern. Would book covers have been decorated that way?

Tom Reedy — February 28, 2014

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It looks like a man on a horse with a lance when rotated 180 degrees, but then I’ve seen camels and whales in clouds.

Tom Reedy — February 28, 2014

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I don’t know about camels and whales, but I just now happened to see Carol’s sand-covered mussels! If you look at it just right, each spot becomes the tip of a blackish-purple mussel sticking up out of the sand, like the mussels in this picture, only more spread-out.

But it’s not sand-covered mussels. It *does* have to do with punctures and transferring images, but it’s not the device that powder would have passed through…

Erin Blake — February 28, 2014

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I can’t imagine anything closer to a stencil than the very paper on which the pattern has been transferred .

elisabeth bruxer — March 1, 2014

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See Erin’s reveal over at “A print pricked for transfer”.

Sarah Werner — March 4, 2014

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