A sweetgrass comb is easily distinguished from the very similar sheep wool comb used to extract burs and other large objects from shorn sheep wool. The lanolin in the sheep wool permeates those combs and creates a slippery dark coating to the tines. This piece from Northwest Central Vermont has no evidence of lanolin and presumably was used for other things, such as straightening and aligning hanks of sweetgrass before braiding or tying it for making baskets.
