Thread: Ivory - how do you know

As the title suggests, bought a razor this AM. Scales are a natural blonde material, I guess either bone or ivory.

They have quite a bit of black speckling, which suggests bone to me?

I guess pics will help.

Cheers,
Greg

donate the razor to me and I will fully inspect and warrant the accuracy of my assessment in an official-looking document

(just waiting for pictures)

Here is a site with more than you would ever want to know about identifying ivory.
http://www.cites.org/eng/resources/p...vory-guide.pdf

I think it comes down to a couple of basic tells. One, the material has a grain evident. Next, the grain shows a chevron pattern, like <<< or >>>. This is best seen in bright light, like sunlight. It doesn't have to be everywhere, just somewhere.
The old standby method of making sure it's not a plastic imitation is the hot pin test. You simply heat a needle with a flame until the tip is red hot and stick it in. Of course, you have to hold the pin with something so you won't get burned. Choose a spot where a little hole won't show. If it goes right in, it's plastic. If not, it's not plastic.

It's not plastic.

Not sure how much use these pics will be but:

The spots indicate bone, and are pores which have collected dust and debris and aged. Nice looking piece.

Yer, but I want ivory. I don't know why, I just do.

Honed up nicely. Shame about the pitting.

bone........

figured as much. one day.

Agree, its bone. Actually once you handle real ivory you would never mistake it for anything else again. Also each type of Ivory has a different structure which is how they can tell when you import stuff if its elephant or mammoth or hippo or whatever.