What an awesome piece of history!! It's a Civil War Confederate Veterans Reunion Whiskey Hip Flask. It is identified as a soldiers Reunion Flask belonging to an veteran of the 17th Virginia Infantry. The soldier neatly and skillfully painted information on each side of the pewter cup. On one side he painted a Confederate battleflag in the center and CSA VETERAN 1865, and the other side has another different type of Confederate battleflag in the center and 17th VA INFANTRY 61-65 . Flask is a very nice English Made piece with hard leather wrapping around the entire glass Flask. Glass has nice air bubbles, as can be seen on the bottom of the Flask. Has a pewter cap and a removable pewter drinking cup. It has the makers mark of "James Dixon & Sons" of England. There are some that believe this Flask to be Civil War Period, but I really think it is post War. The 17th Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regt. was recruited from Alexandria, Fairfax, Manassas, Warrenton, Leesburg and upper Northern Virginia in general. They suffered heavy casualties, especially early in the war at Williamsburg, Seven Pines, The Seven Days, 2nd Manassas, and Antietam. No doubt this was taken to many Reunions full of whiskey and shared with his fellow comrades. The glass is broken inside the leather shroud and is still solid and not fragile due to the hard leather wrapping. One might think it could have been dropped at one of the reunions by an intoxicated veteran. 😵‍💫🥴. The piece is still solid and intact and displays superbly. This is just one of those super cool pieces that really stands out. I have never in 40 years of collecting, seen another one of these for sale that was identified , like this one is.

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