Origin of this dagger?

[Loedjoe]

Thank you very much to all who have commented on this - it has been most interesting and helpful.

There are no black dots in the black lines, so I think we can safely exclude hippo ivory as the materail of the hilt.

[ASH]

Not sure on the knife's origin, but the hilts material I would say looks just like sperm whale tooth ivory. I collect mainly Polynesian art and see a fair amount of this material. Just my two cents
Great knife.

[David]

Originally Posted by ASH

Not sure on the knife's origin, but the hilts material I would say looks just like sperm whale tooth ivory. I collect mainly Polynesian art and see a fair amount of this material. Just my two cents
Great knife.

This make much more sense to me. The larger back teeth of the sperm whale especially would provide both the length and mass necessary to carve a reasonably sized hilt. Here is a large scrimshaw tooth as well as a nice keris hilt purported to have been made from a sperm whale tooth. I suspect that this is the material most often used where claims of dugong have been made.