What is this?

[Desertdigger]

I found this object while digging bottles in New Orleans in 1971, it is porcelain, has a hole all the way thru it, writing says "Beaumont Rye", dots are random, it is 2 1/2" long and is one of the oddest pieces I have found in 50 years of digging bottles and metal detecting. I spent hundreds of hours in the New Orleans public library researching for a bottle book and not time did I ever find a reference to Beaumont Rye.
Thanks for your thoughts.

 

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[Lasivian]

Since it's 1-6 I would say it's definately something to do with the 1-6 you see on dice.

Since the center is hollow I would assume it's been placed on something and spun, so that a random number would come up each spin.

Is there any wear on the inside of the hole, or the ends?

 

[Desertdigger]

Since it is ceramic or china, no wear is detectable. A game is everyones guess! I have carried this thing and showed it to museum curators including the Smithsonian and not one has ever saw any thing like it. It is not a one time thing like a vase or bowl but part of a production item. Pie crust roller marker is one guess, but Beaumont Rye pie crust?
Thanks

 

[Tuckernotis]

"The psychological warfare between the characters seeped its way into my dreams, especially after I realized that this book must have been the basis for Miller's Crossing, my all-time favorite film and occasion of the best drinking game ever: match Ned Beaumont rye for rye and see if you can make it to the third scene."


Check out the novel "The Glass Key" by Dashiel Hammet. Ned Beaumont is a character in the book. The movie Miller's Crossing was based on this book. Rent the movie, Miller's Crossing by the Coen brothers. Shot in New Orleans, Louisiana. Filming began January 27, 1989. I knew people who worked on the movie. Sounded familiar. Wonder if this piece could have been made as part of a game based on the book from 1931? This may be a dead end but it's a start. Good luck. It's a very interesting piece.

 

[Desertdigger]

I don't think it was made for a movie it came from the lower levels of a 20' deep cistern that had been filled with trash shortly after the Civil war, other items in the same sistern were a clasping hands flask, a "CSA" belt buckle. a complete canister shot round, and the best of all a revolutionary war era canteen that had been converted to a container to chip ice in with a pick apparently , by removing one side, the other side had the owners name and unit carved in the oak, I did not get to pick this item and a civil war collector preserved it with water glass. In 5 years of digging privy's, wells and cisterns in New Orleans, this was the best one I was ever in, it had Hutchinson sodas at the top of the ground, blob top sodas below them, Pontiled sodas below them, clay embossed whisky jugs open ponil rum's,open ponil bitters, the 1 complete perfect clasping hands poniled flask, poniled inks, clay inks, medicines , hundreds of bottles and artifacts of Civil war and earlier eras. My group got it 2 days before it was going to be bulldozed for a new freeway and it was on the west bank of the river in Gretna not in New Orleans proper.Odd place for its age.