19th C. School Slate with Lovely Old Corner Mend gifts sign and with a nice warm

and with a nice warm patina including old stained and light scratches and a little paint here and there

dating to the 1930s I believe

7 3/4" x 5 1/4"

and a bit of damage to the mesh along the bottom edge of the chin

wooden rat reminds me a lot of old carved folk art ice fishing decoys

19th C. School Slate with Lovely Old Corner Mend gifts sign and with a nice warmPurchased this week from a wonderful, old school dealer couple with a historic house of a shop in MA about an hour outside of Boston, this is just my sort of slate much loved and lovingly mended at one corner long ago with a scrap of metal surely cut from some other once functional thing laying around. With two lovely rows of iron nails there, wooden nails plugs still at a couple of the corners, and a beautiful patina to the rest of it. And traces of