(Photos do no justice here to the scale and beauty of this apple.) This is an early (as far as these go)—c.1900--extra large and extra fine turned and hand-painted wood apple. These apples were made in Japan for export to the West, in various sizes, sometimes with a horse race game inside, sometimes with a miniature tea set, sometimes perhaps with nothing at all but it is hard to know now! Happily this one still holds the horse race game, complete with spinner, ball, and 5 of 6 betting chips painted with numbers and horses of different colors corresponding to the spinner, and which, wonderfully, are annotated in pencil on the flip sides with various amounts of bets, up to $5, which would have been a fairly serious bet when it was written! This one has a patent number stamped inside, and features the best yellow and red paint combination I’ve seen on one of these, with a nice fat stem too. It is larger than one typically sees as well—well larger than a real apple. Really an excellent example (and these have become quite collectible) in very lovely condition.
4 3/4” t x 4 1/4” d and in very good condition, just a little wear to the paint and a bit of staining to the underside, minor. Spinner spins fast; many many rounds of horse betting left in this--just not on horse #3!
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