As part of the policy she adopted after the death of my brother, my mother has started giving me strange and unusual heirlooms. She has very little idea where most of them came from, nor necessarily quite what they are.
Here's something she gave me yesterday:
It's a pin of some sort, 35mm long and with a kind of safety catch that can't really be described as safe. She thought it was maybe a tie pin, but it could be a brooch, or a pin with some kind of meaning (military for example). The stone looks to be an amethyst.
I guess maybe I'll try it out as a tie pin, if I find a tie I don't mind ruining.