Thread: Carl Victor Heljastrand

Anyway, thumbs up for Thaeris being a true gentleman.

He was actually the one who targetted me to the MOP one, even though he knew how much a newbie I was at the time.

Of the 3 Kings of the natural scale material: Ivory, Mother of Pearl, and Tortoiseshell. It would seem to me that the easiest to duplicate in a synthetic form would be Tortoiseshell. But the synthetics don't come close.....I'm only going by images on a computer as I have never handled real tortoiseshell.

Originally Posted by WW243

Of the 3 Kings of the natural scale material: Ivory, Mother of Pearl, and Tortoiseshell. It would seem to me that the easiest to duplicate in a synthetic form would be Tortoiseshell. But the synthetics don't come close.....I'm only going by images on a computer as I have never handled real tortoiseshell.

Trust me, faux tortoise doesn't come even close to the real deal. I will say if the Dovo #41 would have been a better more substantial BLADE, I would have kept it. The scales were absolutely beautiful!

The three of them have imitations, none of them convincing.

To answer your question about MOP looking like abbalone : there are actually several kinds of MOP with different hues and colors

The scales look kind of clunky to me.

Originally Posted by AntiqueHoosier

They are MOP. Sourced from the Philippines. Cost to Dovo too high thus ceasing production.

I believe you, it even looks different and I would imagine a difference in feel. Then there is density......

Originally Posted by AntiqueHoosier

Trust me, faux tortoise doesn't come even close to the real deal. I will say if the Dovo #41 would have been a better more substantial BLADE, I would have kept it. The scales were absolutely beautiful!

Well that's what Dovo sales often are : a huge clunky heap of choice material

They were clunky paired with that 5/8 Dovo stainless blade...on a more substantial piece of steel...maybe perfect

I used to do some guitar restorations years ago. Had a contact who would scour the ebay for old sources of tortoise shell to repurpose. Lots of old cameo boxes, cosmetics boxes, hair brushes, things of this nature. I would frequently purchase picks and pickguards of genuine tortoise which had been repurposed from these antiquities (disclaimer here: this is totally legal.). There are sources for artificial material that VERY closely resemble the properties of genuine tortoise. The Thiers Issard faux tortoise is nearly indistinguishable from the real deal.

And since I haven't seen any sexy ivory yet in this thread, my own contribution: my beloved CVH MK No. 33 (yes, that's "33"):