AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Contemporary Accoutrements => Topic started by: rich pierce on October 19, 2009, 10:13:14 PM
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I bought some old dinner knives at an estate sale. James Rogers, Cutler to Her Majesty, etc stamped on the. They are delightfully thin, nice bolsters, and have ivory-looking handles. My wife says the handles are "bakelite", the seller said ivory. i'm leaning toward my wife's assessment. Is there a good way to tell? Ivory should show some grain or be less homogeneous in color etc? The handles are smooth and yellowish.
I just don't know how they made knives so beautifully tapered down to nothing, and tempered them so perfectly. I'd have burned them up 1000 times over.
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Rich,
If you can scrape some of the material off and burn it, that will tell. How you would do that without damaging the handle, I'm not sure, without seeing them. Ivory will smell like burnt hair or feathers. Kinda like making arrows.
Robby
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I bought some old dinner knives at an estate sale. James Rogers, Cutler to Her Majesty, etc stamped on the. They are delightfully thin, nice bolsters, and have ivory-looking handles. My wife says the handles are "bakelite", the seller said ivory. i'm leaning toward my wife's assessment. Is there a good way to tell? Ivory should show some grain or be less homogeneous in color etc? The handles are smooth and yellowish.
I just don't know how they made knives so beautifully tapered down to nothing, and tempered them so perfectly. I'd have burned them up 1000 times over.
Rich,
Most people can't tell the difference between ivory and other ivory looking material or bone. Ivory will have a checkerboard or cross hatched looking end grain, the others don't. Most dinner knives from the early 20th century have either bone or French Ivory handles. French ivory is a faux ivory that is actually celluloid. I don't believe that they would have Bakelite handles.
Here is a web site that shows poker chips with the grain structure of the various materials that were used as knife handles. A simple test would be to heat a needle until it is red hot and touch the point of the needle to the handle material. If ivory or bone it will not melt/burn the surface, but the rest of the celluloid and plastic materials will melt at the needle point. You should be able to distinguish between bone and real ivory just by how they look.
http://www.antiquegamblingchips.com/distinguish_iv_bon_cel.htm
You should be able to Google other methods of testing the various materials.
Randy Hedden
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Should be of exceptional quality judging by the name! ;D :D
I have seen mid- nineteenth century bowies by the same that were super.
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Vigorously rub object with your finger until finger and object are warm. If it is bakelite, your finger will have a burnt asphalt kind of a smell like an old overheated Lionel train transformer. They had bakelite cases.
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That's classic. I know that smell.
Randy: pretty sure it's celluloid by the grain from that website.
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Rich,
Some real ivory has grain that is very difficult to see with the unassisted eye, a 15-20x loupe is a tremendous help - celluloid/Bakelite does not tend to get check-cracks that are long, normally they'll be short (0.150" or less) and erratic whereas bone & ivory . Depending on the storage/use conditions Bakelite/celluloid may not produce a readily detectable "old Lionel xfmr smell" (excellent analogy Nate) with the finger-rub test. You can also do the "feel" test, at room temperature, ivory will feel cool to the touch and plastic will feet warm.
Don't be quick to toss something that is plastic because depending on the item and sometimes the specific type of plastic, it may actually be worth more than it was real ivory.
Here's some info from a website:
>How do I tell if something is ivory, bone or an ivory substitute (plastic or resin)?
Ivory is actually the natural tooth of an animal. Teeth continue to grow throughout an animal's lifetime and as a result, they have a noticeable structure and "growth lines" (called Schreger lines in elephant ivory). Look at the piece carefully under a magnifying glass. Under a 10x magnifier, elephant and mammoth ivory will have visible striations or grain that often show up as diamond or "V" shapes or cross-hatching on the surface or edges of polished ivory. Bone lacks such "V" shaped striations. Under magnification bone usually shows minuscule circular or oval shaped dots on cut surfaces. These dots are the tiny vessels that once supplied the living bone. Also, bone exhibits grain-like parallel striations and usually has dark flecks of dirt particles caught in the pores of cut bone -- all not present in ivory. Resins or plastics have a uniform surface, usually with no striations or diamond or "V" patterns, however some manufacturers are now introducing faux ivory with an attempt to reproduce some of these features.
When looking at a piece, check the bottom or sides for the diamond or cross-hatch pattern typical of real ivory. Then check again for a slight wood-grain pattern, this is also typical of real ivory. Next, check the feel. Real ivory should have a cool-to-the-touch feeling. Resins or plastics may duplicate one or some of these features, but none duplicates them all.
Also, color often varies slightly (I emphasize slightly) throughout natural ivory (more variable in mammoth) from a creamy white to a creamy yellow-tan or a creamy, light yellow-brown, whereas bone and plastics are either consistent in color throughout, or their color variations may be extreme, especially in stained or colorized resins and plastics.
The next test involves using an inexpensive blacklight which you can find at most department or home improvement stores. Shine the blacklight on the piece. Ivory develops a beautiful natural patina with age which shows up as a yellow-brown overall color under normal lighting conditions. Under ultraviolet light, where the original ivory surface shows through the patina, the ivory will show up a bright white. When ultraviolet light is shined on resin or plastic ivory substitutes, the ultraviolet light is absorbed and they exhibit a dull appearance. (The light emitted by many long wave ultraviolet radiation lamps is hazardous to the eyes. NEVER look directly at a UV light.)
You can also take a Q-tip, dip it in alcohol and rub the piece in an inconspicuous area. If the patina comes off and colors the Q-tip, chances are good it's a paint or varnish or some other substance that was applied to give the impression of age.
There is one other way to tell if a piece is ivory or plastic, but be aware this should be used only as a last resort since it can be a destructive test, especially to plastic. It is the "so-called" red hot pin test. Take a pin and heat it in a flame until it is red hot. Touch the hot pin to an inconspicuous area of the piece. If it is real ivory, nothing much will happen. It may, however, produce a tiny smooth scorched point (which is never good for the resale value of a genuine ivory piece). If, on the other hand, it is resin or plastic, the needle may melt into the surface and produce a "burr" or small rough spot (never something a seller of fakes is actually going to allow you to do). If you are very close when you touch the pin to the piece, what you will notice most is the smell of burning plastic. The "hot pin test" is actually more myth than practical. No seller is going to let you touch a hot piece of metal to real ivory and a fraud won't let you do it to their plastic piece either.
The "hot pin test" results are actually very difficult to verify and again, let's face it, no seller is going to let you touch a hot piece of metal to real ivory and a fraud won't let you do it to their plastic piece either.
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I use ivory for high grade knife handles. Mostly mammoth, whale, walrus and elephant. The cross hatched pattern is only found in mammoth and elephant. It's not visible on whale and walrus. This pattern is found on cross section of the core of the tusk, not in bark section. In the bark there are only "tree rings".
This is a pictrue of a chunk of mammoth I have. It shows the the core(top of picture) and bark(bottom of picture) patterns.
(http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i202/rolfkt/ivory/ivory017.jpg)
This is a cross section of a spermwhale tooth (best ivory for hidden tang knives. Hard as rock!!). Here there is only "tree rings" in both bark and core.
(http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i202/rolfkt/ivory/ivory016.jpg)
This is walrus. The crystaline structure in the center is the root channel. A side from that it looks alot like whale tooth.
(http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i202/rolfkt/ivory/ivory023.jpg)
Best regards
Rolfkt
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Rich,
Do your knife handles look like this one? Many people would think that this is real ivory. You can see the striated grain structure around the lion's head in the second picture. This is a French Ivory, (faux ivory/celluloid), knife handle that I have laying around.
Randy Hedden
(http://imagehost.vendio.com/preview/ju/junebug48/frenchivory4.jpg)
(http://imagehost.vendio.com/preview/ju/junebug48/frenchivory5.jpg)
(http://imagehost.vendio.com/preview/ju/junebug48/frenchivory6.jpg)
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That's the stuff! Sure enough. They are plain, though. I need to get some pictures but these darn new digital cameras are so small I misplaced mine!
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Now I've gone the other way. Eyes are not what they used to be and the knives had some patina. Now with careful exam I see the cross-hatching on end grain and it passed the hot needle test. So they are ivory after all. As my Dad says, "Lucky when ya win."
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Rolf,
Great info - thank you!
Rich,
Glad you got the real deal!
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Along this vein...I collected quite a few old white piano keys (actually, just the yellowed white material that was on top), I've been told that it's ivory, but, I've never really known for sure. Your thoughts?
Bill
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Rich, does your handles look like this one? It passed the hot needle test as well .
(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a396/johnsmo3/104_5332.jpg)
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Smo,
From the picture, what you have looks like bone. The hot needle test is a test to distinguish ivory from any of the plastics like celluloid and Bakelite. Bone will test much like ivory and does not melt at the touch of a hot needle. The old carving sets and table ware pieces seldom had ivory handles.
Randy Hedden
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Bill...I think the older piano keys were indeed ivory ...the little white top scales glued to the wood block anyway...I thought an old upright piano about to be junked was a good place to get ivory inlay material...I have a small stash of it, but its so thin it will really only inlay on flat work...but it may be good for miniature etchings or even miniature paintings on ivory like they used to do in colonial days? Or small name packs on fancy knife handles...it engraves up nicely.
TCA
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I agree with Randy. The black spots look like the pores filled with grim you find in bone. On an old piece of dried out ivory you'll cracks running lengthwise that turn black with grim. The yellow color is typical for bone that hasn't been degreased. Bone has to be degreased to stay "ivory white".At the Norwegian veterinary collage we degreased bone in a bath of hot alcohol or petroleum distillate. Not something you want to try at home.
I'll take a picture of a piece of dried out "cracked" ivory I've got and post it tomorrow.
Best regards
Rolfkt
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Along this vein...I collected quite a few old white piano keys (actually, just the yellowed white material that was on top), I've been told that it's ivory, but, I've never really known for sure. Your thoughts?
Bill
Bill,
If you can date the piano that you got the keys off of, you can rule out plastic keys, but you will still have to determine if the material is ivory or celluloid. Most real plastics were discovered during WWII and after. Plastic started to be used on piano keys during the 1950's. Before that time piano keys were either ivory or celluloid. Of course, finer, more expensive pianos continued to use ivory keys after other manufacturers went to plastic. You can surely try the hot needle test to one of the keys and determine if they are ivory or not.
I have a bag full of ivory piano keys and have to agree with Tim Albert about their use as inlays.
Randy Hedden
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(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff114/Trkdriver99/2Knife.jpg)
These are 2 that I have found in junk/antique stores.
The flat ended one says Joseph Rodgers & sons and under that Sutlers to Her Majesty. Over that is V a crown R and under the writing are 2 symbols one like this * and a cross of sorts.
The rounded one says Mappin Brothers with a sunburst sort of a touch mark and some more writing under it that I can not make out.
They both pass the hot needle test. Does anyone know anything about these?
Ronnie
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Randy or Tim,
Either of you want to part with a few of thos old ivory piano keys?
Let me know,
Mark
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You can heat those thin pieces and they will bend but they have to boil a long time and may curl, a lot, both ways, the ones I worked looked like a wide egg noodle. Make a form and clamp them it it quickly, do a practice run with a piece of wet folder. You may still get some cracks. It took me about ten to get four that I could use.
Tim C.
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Ronnie, it's hard to say for sure if its bone or ivory by looking at the picture you posted. Its to grainy. If force to venture an opinion, I'd guess the handles are from the shaft of a large leg bone. Could you post a sharp close up of the end of the handles with a white back ground?
Best regards
Rolfkt
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Here is the picture of old dried out "cracked" Ivory I promised to post.
Notice the length and shape of the lines. It looks quite different from the pore structure in bone.
(http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i202/rolfkt/tang%20carvings/tangutskjring010-1.jpg)
Best regards
Rolfkt