A friend pulled these out of an old violin, and knowing I was interested in this kind of stuff, sent them to me. They’re violin pegs that probably predate 1800, and are maybe as old as 1750. (Notice that one peg doesn’t match–a later replacement, probably.) Eric Meyer, a great fittings maker on the west coast, tells me that they’re probably French, and, based on the number of them that he’s seen (that is: many), they were probably being commercially produced and distributed.
Thanks to another friend, here’s another set of pegs from around the same time (and again, one of the set doesn’t belong), but this time from England. This is a common English pattern, and all of the ones I’ve seen have been blocky like these, and light colored:
A similar type is still seen on some old English cellos, and here’s a set in situ on an English cello that was made around 1780:
