The beaded horse head was one half of a beaded two sided miser purse.

What I I have been told by another collector is that this is not that unfamiliar happening. When someone passes away and relatives love the same item sometimes there are difficulties. The solution in the case of a miser purse is to cut it in half and remake each half into a coin purse. 

Unique Miser Wrist Purse of a green metal mesh,  probably made 1890-1920.

The experts on metal mesh purses have never seen another. It was probably custom-made for a  member of a prominent banking family in Meridian, Mississippi.  The purse style coincides with the growth of the city, during its “Golden Age” 1890-1930  when it became the largest and most prosperous center of manufacturing in Mississippi.