The best way to tell whether your item is not plastic and is in fact ivory is with the Pin Test. This is done by heating a pin until it's red hot and placing it on the item where you don't mind putting a small burn mark. The smell that the ivory gives off is similar to the smell when your dentist has a drill on your tooth. If this is done with plastic or any other man-made material you will not experience the hot Pin Test. You can also use a UV light, which will make the ivory fluoresce to a light blue color, while synthetic materials, instead, show up darker.
Use the hot pin test. Heat up a pin or needle and touch it to an inconspicuous location. The hot needle will penetrate resin.
For future reference, Google is awesome.
Why would anyone want such a large piece of a more than likely endangered species? The removal of tusks from the animal almost always mean certain death unless already killed by a poacher. I wouldn't want anything related to any of the aforementioned subjects.
He didn't say if it was walrus ivory or elephant ivory. Alaska natives harvest, craft and sell walrus ivory all the time. Legally. I've picked up quite a few pieces in my travels through the State of Alaska. A two foot carved tusk would be nice to have but pretty expensive. Last time I priced an uncarved walrus ivory headmount they were in the $2000 plus range.
Elephants in Botswanna are so prolific, they are being considered vermin. I may be wrong, but I think I read a report that said if it could be certified to come from there, it could be imported.
Not cheap I'm sure.
there is lots of legal ivory in the US. Most of it in piano keys. Why they chose ivory for piano keys, I can't explain, but maybe it was all they had at the time?
All of these restrictions have came from unsubstainted reports of tree huggers that have said these animals are endangered.
My fav is the girl that cuts my hair. She knows I hunt, and her hubby does also. She expressed a concern for the polar bear, citing reports on the news media that showed them on a tiny ice floe miles from shore, so that must mean they are going to die, and the rest need to be protected.
After explaining the polar bear can swim up to 100 miles, and the population is at record levels, she finally admitted she had been duped by the media, and global warming idiots.
