Farmer’s Tinderbox:

Information:

  • Title: Farmer’s Tinderbox
  • Inventor: Florse Stagduran.
  • Type of Object: Tinderbox.
  • Description: A metal tinderbox. On the top of the lid, there are engravings of lines that create a repetition of small lined squares.
  • Medium: Metal.
  • Date of manufacture: c.a. 3019 (TA).
  • Place of origin: Tuckborough, The Shire.
  • Artifact: Mathom House Artifact #2319.
  • Collection: Permanent.
  • Status of object: Donated by Valten Towheart.

Museum Label:

Crafted late in the Third Age, this silver tinderbox-shaped container was one of many creations made by Florse Stagduran (2928 – 3020). A well-regarded tinkerer, Stagduran reshaped and remodelled old, used tinderboxes to create small compartments often used by farmers and gardeners to separate important seeds or agricultural finds. Stagduran’s Farmer’s Tinderboxes were of durable quality, and she would often use her artistic side to create engravings on the metal, as seen on the intricate pattern of squared lines.

History:

Florse Stagduran was the third child and only daughter of Mr. Armist Stagduran (2883 – 2973) and Mrs. Nesmur Stagduran née Murwall (2883 – 2978). She was born and raised in The Shire, on the outskirts of Whitfurrows. Her father had been a farmer with fields in the Marish, near Farmer Maggot’s residence, and was responsible for growing vegetables such as mushrooms and potatoes. Her mother was often in charge of gardening duties and would bring Stagduran to collect fruits such as blackberries, strawberries and plums whenever they were ripe from their family home’s garden. Growing up in such a natural environment, Stagduran watched as her father and, later on, her brothers, Grewer and Comsbe, respectively, would create their own tools for farming and often trade with other Hobbits that lived around their Hobbit hole. 

Because of such influence, she quickly learned how to create tools and craft objects for the convenience of her family, but soon, her neighbours were also interested in the talent she had to offer. By the time she was in her forties, Stagduran had earned a reputation as the local tinkerer. Hobbits from all over the Eastfarthing would bring her broken tools, unconventional requests for farming materials, and even ideas for new practical tools. She designed many things. However, her most personal project, like the Farmer’s Tinderboxes, truly reflected her inventive, practical, and charming character.

The Farmer’s Tinderboxes, a project started around 3015 TA, was not just a tool but also a reflection of Stagduran’s personality and artistic sensibility. After her parents’ passing, she found many tinderboxes that the family often used to light pipes and fires. Looking inside them, she found great potential to create something new and helpful from objects that would be set aside and forgotten. She changed the outside and inside of the tinderboxes, taking out the matches and flint and remodelling the boxes to become practical tools.

Its primary purpose was to help herself and her brothers keep their farming and gardening seeds separated, though they were also used for keeping important seeds, small leaves, and so on. Initially, this was a personal project, but she soon discovered that many people had unusable old tinderboxes from their pipe use and would request the same remodelling from her. Always fond of drawing and painting, she would go out of her way to craft a tinderbox with personified details of those she was giving it to– be it with drawings of fruits or engravings of initials or names. 

The Farmer’s Tinderboxes found in the Mathom House was one of Stagduran’s last works, given as a gift to Valten Towheart, her neighbor. The squared lines engraved in the metal’s lid were supposed to represent the lines of the small strawberry garden that Towheart had in her home, where Stagduran herself would often help Towheart cultivate the fruits. 

 

 

Image Copyright Information:

Photograph: ‘Tinderbox.’ Photographer: Rafaela Aigner de Oliveira. Medium: Metal. Manufacturer: Unkown. Description: An empty metal tinderbox. On the top of the lid, there are engravings of lines that create a repetition of small lined squares. Date of Production: Unknown. Original Owner: Gifted to Rafaela Aigner de Oliveira.