Originally Posted by
Michjmf09
Thanks Janey and all who replied. Again, makes perfect sense now. My last bit of ignorance was that the red cased object was a needle threader. It’s a bad pix but it said “button whole cutter”. At least that was labeled. Turns out it was money well spent. Also had some vintage large Bakelite buttons and some lovely small mother of pearl buttons on the original card.
After I posted, last night, I found out that "N.R. CO." is "Novelty Rubber Company" and that they also made rubber buttons based on Charles Goodyear patent for "hard rubber" process. I found a couple of tatting shuttle sites that mention Novelty Rubber Company.
http://pages.suddenlink.net/tatmeist...rubber-co.html and about two thirds the way down the page of
https://tattingcollector.weebly.com/...-shuttles.html
Thanks for some bait for more "bunny trails"
Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.