A Small Charm with A Big Secret

This Victorian watch fob has held a little secret for in its own time, and even still over 100 years later. I n its closed position it looks very much like a "Ballot Ball" that one would use during Masonic voting, however, by an ingenious arrangement of hinges, which are imperceptible from the exterior, it may be opened out into the form of a cross.  Each section is pyramidical in shape with a spherical base.
image above: our found masonic globe opened to show its hand engraved symbols. image below: an original rendering found in our research that shows how the cross should be read and interpreted. 
In reference to the image above found in our research, the drawing shows the position and order the symbols should be interpreted:

1st Row:  (to be read from West to East)

"The Conception of God"

1st Square:

  • Compasses: God's omnipotence is visible everywhere.
  • Sun and Moon: The heaven's show forth His glory, one day declares it to be another.
  • Plumb-line: His power descends from above to the whole of the earth

2nd Square:

  • Level: and spreads over the surface of the world.
  • Two columns: Rising and setting are His work
  • Delta: and show us there must be a divine existence.

3rd Square:

  • Cross and Cable-tow: The true and first perception of Him has come to us through Christ.

4th Square:

  • Gavel: Through him we learn the proper government of the moral as well as the physical world.
  • Blazing Star: Thus He appears as the paternal Creator,
  • Hexagonal Star: as the merciful, beneficent, preserver of the world,
  • Square: and as the everlasting, all-righteous God.

2nd Row:  (to be read from North to South)

"The Way From Darkness to Light"

(The moral evolution in virtue of the conception of God.)

1st Square:

  • Rough Ashlar: The natural man who, being ignorant, has to learn by the spirit of God,
  • Tessellated Pavement:  but is still His child, capable of development by the divine light that dwells within him.
  • Seven Steps: by patient perseverance in well doing, and thus ennobling himself
  • Trowel: he purifies and refines his heart according to the will of the Great Architect.

2nd Square:

  • Cross and Cable-tow:  The real Teacher of the true way of life is the Master of Nazareth,

3rd Square:

  • Skull & Crossbones:  who has shown by precept and example, that we can, whilst on earth here, separate the earthly from the heavenly,
  • Acacia: and who has brought life
  • Perfect Ashlar: and eternal existence to all.

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All of these symbols interpreted together, explain and lay out the Freemason's doctrine that the organization lived by, based all their tenants on, held their members to.

Needless to say, we feel like a character in the movie National Treasure uncovering the secret within this little globe and learning the meaning behind it.