Your tiger claw looks similar to the tiger claws in gold mounts, (earrings) although not as ornate, made by John Brogden, (1842 -85) a London jeweller and goldsmith whose work was mainly antique styes and influenced by FORTUNATO PIO CASTELLANI - Brogden's best known piece is the ASSUR BANI PAL BRACELET. Brogden also made some special pieces with mounted TIGER'S CLAWS and also ARCHAEOLOGICAL JEWELRY.
Carin
Rating
Tiger's Claw Jewelry by: Yvonne
Good Evening Karen!
Tiger's claw jewelry made from the curved tapering claws of a tiger, with gold tips and mounts were popular in the Victorian era between 1860-90s. They were sometimes mounted with gold tips in India and China. The material could be from a Bengal tiger from India....
" And this is what officers in the British service would do for recreation when they were off-duty: tiger hunting. Tigers are now a protected endangered species, but in those days, tigers were a feared creature that preyed on villagers and it was considered that the British officers were doing a favor by going out there and killing the tigers to protect the people, the livestock. And they would go on the elephants, they would beat the brush, get the tigers out and then they would shoot the tigers, but then they would remove the claws from the tiger and they would give those to jewelers and commission jewelry from the tigers' claws." Barry Weber, Appraiser
The letters you see, are what are called the "maker's mark" - the jeweler commissioned to mount the Claw into Tiger Claw Jewelry.
Best Wishes,
Yvonne Hammouda Eyre
Reference:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/200505A24.html on 28/09/2011
