My mother gave me an old traveling case that contained items of my grandfather’s. Among the prizes were a letter written to my grandmother, several watches, various small pins which have a military feel about them, his dog tags, and what I first thought was an airplane pendant. However, after a closer examination, it is clearly a penis with wings. I have googled all kinds of phrases to try to find what this is exactly, but no dice. Here is the closest picture I could find:
It doesn’t look “official”… but it looks very much like the Roman artifact thing… It doesn’t look cheaply done… but it is distinctly a penis. Could it be sort of a talisman to ward off STDs or something??? Just kind of funny finding it in my Quaker grandfather’s box of trinkets (which also included a NAZI WEHRMACHT INFANTRY ASSAULT AWARD BADGE; this has been a very interesting evening as far as finding cool stuff).
I don’t think there is an explanation as to what it is. It is what it is: a winged phallus, a roman symbol of good luck (and not, apparently, fertility).
That link, by the way, is the origin of the one in the OP.
Can you take a picture of the actual one you have? That’d help a lot.
Alternately, what material is it made out of, and how big is it? Does it look hand-made, or mass-produced? Does it have a pin mounting, a necklace ring, no mounting at all? Left in the normal color for its material, or painted? That might help level it down some.
As Isilder said, it’s a fascinus. Historically, rings and pendants in this image were worn as protective charms or good luck charms. I recall reading that the *fascinus *was also the emblem of the city of Pompeii (much good it did them).
My grandfather came back with one. He never showed it to us, but we found it in his box of mementos and army documents. I’d post a picture, but my mom has it now. I’ll consult the photo album later to see if it says just where Zeide was deployed.
As a teen, I found a small box of these, about 20 of them.
They were in a clear, plastic, hinged box like you would find straight pins in at the store.
My sister told me that they were a flying fuck. I have no idea what happened to them, but they were clearly mass produced at that time, circa 1976.
My brothers and I found one of these among my dad’s things after he died–he was in the Navy during the Korean War and spent time in the Mediterranean, so I’m assuming he picked this up as a souvenir during a visit to Italy. I’m glad to find some explanation of what it was–It certainly surprised us when we found it!
I did take a photo of it, but I don’t see a way to post photos here. It was made of brass, with an eyelet for stringing it on a chain, and was about 1" long.
You can post a picture by uploading it to imgur.com and posting a link here.
And FYI: Welcome to the SDMB This thread is more than a year old, just so you know. You can still post in it, but some of those posters may not come back to revisit it.
This thread is more than a year old, just so you know. You can still post in it, but some of those posters may not come back to revisit it.
