All these suggestions are just super!! All of you are better then any google search and I have to say 'personal experience' beats all odds of any search:) I am making notes on all the suggestions, making marks on my favorites to keep my search ongoing!:)I am glad I am NOT the only person in the world stressing out over the 'thimblemania' issues of the world:) I appreciate all you are sharing in the thoughts of this process!! As, I am sure there are others thinking the same mental thanks!! Keep them coming!! Even though I do looooove vintage and objects w/history, I have been warned that the older thimbles can be of a softer metal and may not last and end up w/a sad hole in the end. Which to me, would be such a sad thimble emergency for the thimble:) I really don't know that as a 'true' or not...I still secretly look while at flea markets, etc in their glass cases for those tarnished thimbles!:))Keep your thimble ideas and experiences coming!! It's such a huge help and relief! (They do exist in the real world):)Thanks much! Skeat