Where to Buy Exotic Ivory

K

KB1SYV

Guest
Hi Everyone,

I've been looking around and I'd eventually like to try making a Bowie with an Ivory handle. Don't know what kind of ivory yet, but I think it makes for a beautiful knife. I searched and read about a place for elephant ivory, but is there a place that is all inclusive and sells all the ivories, or a number of them? Maybe walrus, elephant, whale tooth. I've read the laws and I know a lot of it has to be already in the country to be sold legally. Just looking for places that are out there that would have them before they are all gone:(

Thanks

Jeff
 
Try Boone Trading Company at www.boonetrading.com. They have preban elephant ivory, fossilized ivory, hippo teeth, and preban and fossilized walruss ivory. They also carry various horns and bones as well as oosic.

Doug Lester
 
Spouting Whale sells whales teeth, Mammoth and etc. It is 2 city over from my shop. I am working on a knife for him now. You can get Warthogs Tusks on gunbroker.com. , camel and giraffe bone from them too.;)
 
From a knifemaking aspect, I would encourage you to concentrate on using fossil ivories. While not totally stable, they are considerably more so than "fresh" ivory (fresh meaning any type of ivory that is not fossilized). Fresh ivories present a great many challenges for a knifemaker....most of them not having happy endings.

Another good source that hasn't been mentioned is Charles Turnage (don't have is website right off the cuff).
 
Hi , Charlie Turnage is - Fine Turnage Productions . Another is Elephant Ivory Tusks . Bill
 
EdCaffreyMS said:
From a knifemaking aspect, I would encourage you to concentrate on using fossil ivories. While not totally stable, they are considerably more so than "fresh" ivory (fresh meaning any type of ivory that is not fossilized). Fresh ivories present a great many challenges for a knifemaker....most of them not having happy endings.

Another good source that hasn't been mentioned is Charles Turnage (don't have is website right off the cuff).
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Ed,

Thanks for that heads up. I'm light years away from a seasoned knife maker, and if the fresh ivory is a challenge for a journeyman or master, then I have no business even attempting to look at it, never mind buy it. Now are fossil ivories relatively easy to work with or do they have their own set of issues?

Thanks,

Jeff
 
Indian George said:
Spouting Whale sells whales teeth, Mammoth and etc. It is 2 city over from my shop. I am working on a knife for him now. You can get Warthogs Tusks on gunbroker.com. , camel and giraffe bone from them too.;)
Click to expand...

Hey IG,

I don't know if this is something too big to jump into for one of my first knives. But I've scheming up a design for an old school Bowie (Big Bowie), with an ivory handle and such. I don't know if a whale tooth would be better or not, I would need to see it. I'm too new to know what I want, because I need to know what it is I'm visualizing in my head before I can explain it. An old school big bladed Bowie from the wild west is what I'm thinking at this point.

Jeff
 
Bill T said:
Hey Jeff , have you made any knives yet ?
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Hey Bill,

No I haven't, I think I'm approaching my first week on the forums. I will be heading to Indian Georges the 1st weekend in April for a Knife Making boot camp. I still need to procure some tools and figure out how I'm going to work out of my efficiency.

Jeff
 
Jeff, just a suggestion, slow down. An experianced smith like Ed Caffrey is reasonably certain that his blades will turn out as desired; you and I aren't there yet. Wait until you make a blade that rates an ivory handle before you purchase any. It would do you well to gain some experience shaping wood before you tackle something as tricky as ivory. I was like you not long ago wanting to make the first rate knives right off the bat. Then I found that the learning curve for me was going to be rather long and slow to increase. We all went through that phase, don't worry about it, just keep working and try to do a little better with each knife.

Doug Lester
 
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I agree with Doug 100%. Although ivory and other exotic materials are really nice, without the experience to work them, they can cost you LOTS of money, and tons for frustration. It never occurred to me to ask the question about your experience level.

To give you an insight, I have paid $300-$500 for some really nice pieces of fossil ivory for bowies....only to wreck them, and have to replace the material/handle(s). Not only did I blow the handle, and have to eat the cost of my mistake(s), but then I had to purchase another piece to complete the customers order. It really hurts your back pocket when something goes south with ivory of any type.

I would encourage you to spend some time working with more forgiving materials like woods, and even some synthetics like Micarta or G10 before dropping the kind of money that ivory costs. Its always a little easier to swallow if you mess up a $20 piece of wood or micarta, than it is if you goof up a $200 set of ivory scales, or blow a $400 chunk.
 
Guy's,

Point well taken. I can understand the complexities of working with something like ivory, and I can see that I'm a ways away from being skillful enough to work with it. I will though continue to explore ways to procure it and if a good deal does arise, I'll take it. My one worry is that soon enough, there won't be any of the good stuff left. That's why I would like to buy it, way before I could use it. It does help though to have an idea of what your looking for and in this one case I do. Thanks for your inputs everyone.

Jeff
 
Don't worry, fossilized ivory, though finite in supply, is still being dug up and hippo teeth are still legal to harvest. When you make a knife worthy of an ivory handle it will still be available. Preban ivory can be a pain to deal with because of the documentation that needs to be maintained.

Doug Lester
 
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