File:Post medieval toilet article (ear scoop) (FindID 152479).jpg

English: Fragment of 17th-century silver head-dress pin. Only the scoop-shaped terminal and a fragment of shaft survive. The shaft is rectangular in cross-section, with a complete rectangular perforation which is framed with engraved decoration of pairs of oblique lines. There are two longer lines across the shaft at each end of the perforation. At the complete end of the pin is a semi-spherical concave scoop in the same plane as the shaft. There are two notches in the edges of the shaft between the rectangular perforation and the narrowed stem of the scoop. There are also thin lines along the shaft between the notches. This decoration is repeated on the reverse. The end opposite the scoop is bent upwards and broken.

The pin is 39.7mm long, 6mm wide and 2.6mm thick.

Head-dress pins of this type with scoop and perforation, also known as 'bodkins', are known in both silver and copper alloy. They are known from Dutch portraits of the 17th century and were originally thought to have been imported by Dutch immigrants (Margeson 1993, 8-9), but there are now so many known from England that the fashion must have been current in this country too.