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.
The Russian mastadon mined ivory of the earlier periods can fool you in some instances and has a somewhat different look than modern elephant. Especially if the mastadon stock was from the outer layers (imo).
Cheers
GC
|