I keep an eye out for trench art items with singular sorts of well done engravings, like this one! On the front, a self-portrait of the soldier who made it, one assumes, embracing a sweetheart - while looking straight at us with an expression that seems some combination of eager and sly, suggesting that this may be just one of numerous sweethearts! Inside, two images of beauties, one of them in bikini, and on the back some decorative framing that seems to beg for a name or monogram at center, but, left empty, reinforces the notion that this soldier is still playing the field! Wonderfully done, WW2, with two different images of islands incorporated, so surely he was stationed somewhere in the Pacific. Nicely fashioned fashioned from scrap aluminum, it seems it could have been made to be a cigarette case, with the cigarettes fitting the short way, but could also hold a few letters, or a map, or a notepad, or whatever.
5 1/2" l x 3" w x 7/16" d. Very good condition, no rusting, closes and locks tight, engravings very crisp; photos do no justice. There is, somewhat appropriately, a small area of very light reddish stain around the island above the bathing beauty.
