Thread: Bone or Ivory? Hmmmmmm

Here's am ominous question for all you razor guys tonight.
How many of you can always without a doubt distinguish ivory
scales from bone. I know bone has those little brown flecks and ivory
has more of a grain... but not a lot of the time. I have a few razors right now where I cannot tell.
(And officially, 99.8% of e-bay sellers do not know.)
Who has the secret?

you can often tell by the "growth rings" in ivory
http://www.melfisher.org/aboutivory.htm

Also this page http://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/ivory.html

Bone will not have any of these markings

Yea its usually the growth pattern the problem is alot of Ivory has the markings so faint you need a respectable magnifier to see them. Also for you guys trying to smuggle Elephant Ivory into the country claiming it to be Mammoth Ivory the angle of the growth lines differ and thats how you can tell the difference.

you're quite correct TBS, from memory the arrow head shaped marks should be quite acute (or pointy) on acient ivory and quite broard on new/illegal ivory

The razors i have with both kind of scales, that is ivory and bone and i decided to follow the hot pin test.

simply heat a pin red hot and if its ivory nothing happens, celluloid goes pop and bone to me was obvious.

my tuppence worth, simon

I find that a good rule of thumb to start on is the thickness (or thinness, rather) of the scales. Every ivory scale I have ever seen is at most half the thickness of a celluloid imitation. Ivory doesn't have the porosity of bone and is usually easy to distinguish as the pores clog up with dirt etc. (unless as I recently saw someone had cleaned it all out and varnished the things!). Some ivory is also cut on an oblique angle, giving what look a bit like elongated tree rings along the length of the scale. Other than that it can be difficult - the hot pin test is fine but where do you stick it in without spoiling the looks? I also look inside the scale for saw marks - these are generally left in as they're 'out of sight, out of mind' to makers but a good indicator. Invest in a 15x watchmakers glass and usually all will be revealed.

By the way, I belong to the 0.2% club!

I think it's quite easy to tell ivory from celluloid or bone, but it's hard to provide a single litmus test. Some bone has very little porosity, but it doesn't have the extremely fine grain and capacity for natural polish that ivory has. Celluloid... that should be easy. The hot pin test works great if you can't otherwise tell, but with experience you won't have to do that. Any melting or smoking means the scales are synthetic and if you get a little wisp of very acrid smoke, it's almost certainly celluloid.

I use very thick pieces of ivory on my custom razors so they're tough. I've seen so much cracked ivory from years gone by that I won't do paper thin scales. Most of the vintage ivory razors are 6/8 or smaller and the scales are, as noted by blueprinciple, are quite thin. About half the ivory razors I've seen have had at least one crack and most of those cracks are at the wedge pin - a result of the blade being jammed into the scales too hard at one time or another, breaking it at the pin. Other frequent damage is at the tip of the scale near the pivot pin where the ivory is typically the thinnest.

Originally Posted by PapaBull

... About half the ivory razors I've seen have had at least one crack and most of those cracks are at the wedge pin - a result of the blade being jammed into the scales too hard at one time or another, breaking it at the pin. Other frequent damage is at the tip of the scale near the pivot pin where the ivory is typically the thinnest.

u-h-h-h-m-m-m....like this???


...most of those cracks are at the wedge pin


...Other frequent damage is at the tip of the scale near the pivot pin where the ivory is typically the thinnest.



OK, PapaBull, you're weirding me out, here....

(...OK, what color socks am I wearing?...)

-whatever

-Lou

That looks like a bone handle. Something I forgot - when Ivory cracks it will (unless really brutalised) crack along the length of the grain - bone doesn't as its structure is completely different. Bone cracks tend to either radiate from the pin or wander of jaggedly. Point taken about using thick ivory but those are, after all, custom scales (I'd love to see 'em!). Old ivory is generally very thin and cracks easily especially when it's a good age. Anyway, it gives the razor character!

Yep, that's bone. Bone usually doesn't get damaged as badly as ivory but you've got one of the exceptions to the rule.