This is a very interesting lot of 19th century African craft items. Each one is totally unique. This lot consists of a square African basket, a tooled leather seed pouch and a very unique woven oval grass basket. I would think that any basket collector would be knocked out about this! The oval basket is bound and sewn bundled grass. Everything is hand stitched on here – it has an old sort of heavy paper bottom. It has almost red trade cloth sewn on for decoration and a metal sort of wire decoration that is not in the best condition. This basket could easily be restored if one has the patients to do so. I see on mark on the bottom which are numbers that identify this basket as being probably part of a museum collection at some point. It measures approx 4" at highest x 7"l x 4 ¼" deep. The second item is the square African basket, called an African Bakuba Basket. The basket is made of a woven cane it has a very heavy built up patina on from years and years of oil and dirt. The basket measures 2 7/8"h x 5 ½"w, the condition is far from perfect. You can't tell from the outside that it has any damage except from one outside corner. I would suspect from years of taking the lid off and putting the lid on, there is some wear around most of the interior of the rim top. The bottom is very good; overall the basket is stiff and sturdy. The third item is the African seed pouch. It is hand tooled leather - animal hide but I'm not sure which animal hide. It appears to have natural vegetable dyes of a slight mahogany color. Hand sewed and hand tooled in black leather threads. The pouch has a flap that tucks inside and is a good size for credit cards. It is on super long hemp string, one of the strings is broken at the bottom. The pouch measures 3 5/8" h, 4 3/8"w and ¼" deep when folded flat. So here you go - a truly rare 19th century African basket lot of three worthy of being in the most sophisticate rare basket collection!