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Originally Posted by Hotspur
A hot pin in bone smells like burning hair. A hot pin in ivory smells like burning cotton.
Celluloid and other early plastics go back to the third quarter of the 19th century. Ivorine...hmmm.,,,composites of ground scrap ivory and glue go back as far as well.
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Hello Hotspur,
I tried the hot needle on ivory, bone and some sort of fake ivory and NONE of them was affected in any way. So I can say this is definitely a more anecdotal than a working and reliable test.
Second, when polishing bone and ivory, I noticed they smell very similarly, like the dentist drilling a tooth, so the smell test can also be very misleading.
So I believe the most reliable way to identify ivory is by examining its structure under a magnifying glass.