Shoe tree

What a lovely object! With this beautiful shape worked with care, and its small wooden button. And yet it had, at the time of its manufacture, only a utilitarian use: to keep the shape of the shoes. Today it makes an original decorative object. This shoe tree (left foot) is in two wooden parts, connected by a chromed metal tube and a spring inside that we do not see, but which allows to bring the two pieces closer to insert the shoe tree in the shoe, and then the 2 parts move away and stretch the shoe. I guess it's from the 60s or 70s. Underneath a half-erased marking probably indicates the size, but i'm not sure I can read it, a 7 followed maybe by a 31. It is in good structural condition: the spring does its job, no cracks in the wood, but it has some signs of its age: small marks on the wood and if it was varnished, the varnish has disappeared. It measures 27 cm in length, 8.5 cm in width, 7.5 cm in height and weighs about 250 g.