A strange object in my aunt's cabinet - pricker? awl?
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This is sitting in my aunt's cabinet, alongside a couple of button hooks. The "blade" part is three-sided (like a leather-working awl) with a tiny hook at the end that could just be damage from being pressed against something hard. The metal of the blade feels like old-fashioned knife carbon-steel, and is very slightly rusted. The handle is either bone or ivory, and has that yellowing that one associates with very old age. There's a lump on the handle that feels like it might be very old dried-out leather, but is a brown dry lump.
My aunt had it from her mother, who had it from her mother, who had it from goodness knows where. We're in Australia, and going that far back you hit the Irish immigrants of the late 1800s.
Any ideas?