Dear Alan,
The spotted line is only found in hippo ivory.
Probably it is a western collector thing that we want to know the exact origin of ivory, and that we not accept a term as "marine ivory".
One of your points is that salesmen in Indonesia do not use the term hippo.
But do they make a big selling point of the fact if a hilt is made from elefant ivory ?
And in these cases do they specifiy this into asian elephant, african elephant and/or even mammoth ivory ?
Best regards,
Willem
|