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!

You will see a distinct grain in elephant ivory, but little to none in Walrus and Hippo tooth. Bone will have, upon use of a magnifying glass, have distinct pores and sometimes a straight. boardlike grain. Grant