Tim, could it have been a small cane tip or is it to small? Bob
From the crudeness (and I don't mean to take any thing away from the horn) that would be a good possibility, but there is no way to know. I think we are lucky just to have the horn.
From the simpleness of the bands, varying widths, no turned/carved design there are many things to think about on this horn. Look at the base, first of all it is obviously turned and to a shape that is hard to reproduce. There is no rim on the wood, it fits right inside the horn, the base band does not fit right up to the edge there is a little line of horn showing. Was this part of the design or did it just come out that way? From what I can see the thickness of the horn at the base is very even. How did they get the horn so uniform, turning it? If so why didn't they fancy up the bands?
Some things we just can't answer, we will never know.
Tim