Is it Ivory or Bone？ (I’ll show you how to tell) by David Harper

Hi there, David Harper here. Now one of these items is ivory and the other one is bone, but there's a big difference between the two, not just the material itself, but when it comes to money and crucially the law. So how do you tell the difference between ivory and bone? It's a good question and it's a question I'm asked a lot and it's a very important question to be able to answer because there's a huge difference in value, desirability, generally quality, and of course the legalities of selling ivory and bone are quite complicated with lots of restrictions being put on ivory. So you don't want to be getting yourself into any sort of bother. You don't want to buy illegal ivory or offer illegal ivory for sale. So the first thing you need to do is determine whether the object you're looking at or the piece that you own is indeed ivory or bone. So here we go. Very, very simple. Two pieces here. One is bone. The box is bone. The piece behind is carved ivory. And there is, when you look closely at these things, some distinct differences. So as an overall view, they look very similar in their colours and texture and patination almost. So let's just take the box first, which we know is bone. So bone does have some distinct characteristics. And here's a very good example. Look at that side panel there. So it has the colour of ivory, but look out for these dots and slashes, little tiny marks of jet black. These are much more than dirt marks or ageing marks, whether intentional or natural. They are absolutely pitted into the bone itself. So if you look with a magnifying glass, you'll see tiny little dot holes, almost like burn holes or slashes. And this is evidence of blood vessels. Turn it to the front here, and there's a very good example of a nasty piece of bone. It almost resembles a rotten tooth. So this is where the bone obviously contained a lot of blood vessels, and it's marked and pitted. Looks like it's gone rotten. So very dark, jet black marks. And there are no veins in this. It doesn't look like, or grain rather, doesn't look like it's grainy, where when I show you this ivory, you'll see the difference. So bone looks like ivory, but has the black jet black dots and dashes, which when you look at it under a magnifying glass, you'll be able to see the little imperfections and pock marks throughout the material. So now on to the ivory. So here's a carved ivory tusk. This is late 19th century. So very different. It has much more of a tactile feel to it, ivory, and I'm going to bring it in nice and close. Take a really hard, long look at those carved figures. And as I turn the piece around, you can see that the ivory has a grain, a bit like a wood. So if you have a nice mahogany or oak table at home, have a good look at the top and at the grain, and you'll be able to see the wood grain. And ivory is very similar. It often looks like a white wood, but also do you notice there are no black spots there, like in the bone imperfections. There might be some black areas where it's been chipped or marked and then filled with dirt over the time, but there is no evidence of pock marks, jet black veins, jet black dots. It's all pretty smart and smooth. I mean, there's a black dot there, but that's just damage and dirt. But again, so there's a completely different look once you get used to examining this stuff. So to sum up, the bone will have black marks and black slashes, and you'll be able to see very clearly under magnifying glasses that the holes and the slashes are indentations in the bone, whereas the ivory is much smoother and has a definite grain of wood. There's a nice example there. It looks like white wood. So there you have it. The two differences between ivory and bone, the black dots and the black veins as opposed to none, and the ivory having much more of a wood grain effect. There you go. That's how you tell the difference. It can save you a lot of heartache, trouble, and possible legal difficulties. So there you have it. There's the difference between ivory and bone. I hope this video has been useful. If it has, please do subscribe, like, comment, get in touch. Until next time, I'm David Harper. Cheerio.