Mammoth Ivory: Doctored or Real?

[Peter Atwood]

I've looked at a lot of ivory in the pictures and it seems to me that at least some of it must be artificially colored. I find it hard to believe that all of those fabulous colors occur naturally. Sure, it obviously picks up minerals and gets naturally colored to some extent over the eons, but there seems to be an awful lot of it that is highly colored. Bruce's experiments indicate that coloring bone isn't too difficult to do. So, is it a fact or a fantasy? What do you guys think?

 

[Jason G Howell]

I've handled plenty in the last few years, scales and raw cut up myself. Everything I'VE handled has been real. All colors. There will be light blue powder all over an ugly piece mammoth. Cut into it, polish it, and it'll be beautiful.

 

[Mike Hull]

Back in the 80's, I made some ivory micarta look like bark ivory by scrimshaw. At a show, one of the fish and game thieves tried to confiscate it. Wouldn't believe it was not real,I mean you could only smell the Micarta. I got one of the show officials over, and he got a cop from the lobby, all of a sudden, Mr govt., agent wasn't so keen on adding to his collection.

 

[Bruce Evans]

As far as I know most all of the Ivory you see is natural unless the maker states that it has been dyed.Yes you can add the colors yourself,but most of the time it doesn't look as good as the real thing,Those colors are hard to match.
Bruce Bump dyed the Ivory on his and my collaberation knife to make it look aged and it made the knife look better to us.So if you only have white or cream colored and want the other colors yes you can do it just practice on some scraps first.
Bruce

 

[kile]

I used mammoth ivory for the first time the other day on a mini 605 kit. I had a couple of crappy looking scales lying around that I bought of ebay for 30 a set. They were brown and crusty on the outside, once I sanded them down, there was a very pretty blue/green layer under the brown. The layer was deeper where the ivory was cracked. After shaping and buffing, I turned two peices that looked like old tree bark into a beautiful glossy peice of ivory with blues greens brown cream and white colors that amazed me. And I have four more peices of the same stuff left. I think I got a pretty good deal at 15 bucks a slab. I never would have beleived it when I got those peices that they could ever be turned into something beautiful.
Kyle Fuglesten

 

[C L Wilkins]

If you dye or jig bone, no problem.
If you touch up stag with dye, its "if-y".
If you schrim ivory, its no big deal.
~but~
If you dye mammoth, its downright blasphemous!

 

[Bruce Evans]

I agree CL,But sometimes circumstances call or a little color and you have to do it.I wouldn't want to do it just because I wanted color on a nice piece,but if you handle the knife already and then decide that it should have been colored to make the knife look better or because there was a little color and it made things look off,you might have to.If you know what i mean.
I prefer not to thoughif at all possiable.
Bruce