Artifact- portion of a ship's magnet

[TalesOfTheSevenSeas]

In cleaning out his mother's garage this weekend, Bob came across an old relic from his childhood and apparently much older. Family tradition has it that this magnet came from the compass of an old ship. It is curved, about the size and shape of a piece of horn, very heavy, highly magnatized and encased in a thin layer of black-painted wood. One end appears to be roughly broken, but with a concave with a smoothly ground circular end and a rough, broken end, with a circular concave indentation carved into it.

There is no record of what ship it came from or how old it is. Bob is 53 now and played with it as a child, pulling bits of metal out of the dirt. His dad used it to magnatize his screwdrivers.

Can anyone itentify how this magnet would have fit into a compass and it's approximate age? If not, I'll run it by the maritime museum in SF.

Thanks mates! Here are the photos:

[the Royaliste]

:) Used on opposite pole side of a compass, this is for an iron or steel hulled ship, as the magnet counter acts effects of ships hull on compass.This century....generally seen as 'little green and red balls' beside compass...

[TalesOfTheSevenSeas]

Ahhhhhhh!! OK I thought with the wood on it that it would have been from an older ship. Thanks for the clarification! Mystery solved! Thanks Cap'n!!

[the Royaliste]

:) The 'horns' sit port and starboard on the binnacle, balancing each other.....