lambertiana
Gold Member
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2000
- Messages
- 9,325
The 1912 Simmons catalog pages that Danno50 posted a few days ago got me thinking about the ebony used in antique slipjoints. Those catalog pages say that their ebony was from the east coast of Africa and from Madagascar. Today when we think of jet black ebony we always think of Gabon ebony, which is from equatorial West Africa. I know that good jet black ebony can be found in Madagascar (I have a Marjacq knife with Madagascar ebony handle and it is the best black ebony I have on a production knife handle - very very fine grain, pure jet black). Years ago I bought a couple small blocks of Gabon ebony that rival it in quality, but my Marjacq has stunning ebony for an inexpensive production knife. I wish I bought more when I saw it on close out sale. Note also that there are approximately 240 diospyros species in Madagascar alone (only about 15 of them grow large enough to be considered for timber) so there are a few possibilities for Madagascar ebony.
The other part of the equation is the ebony that they got from the east coast of Africa. I am not aware of an ebony species found in east Africa that is uniform black. However, there is a long history of African Blackwood (dalbergia melanoxylon) being called ebony; the consensus is that prior to a couple hundred years ago, only African Blackwood was called ebony, and people started calling members of the diospyros species ebony to increase their value on the market. The ebony used for European furniture inlay work over the last couple centuries has been East Indian ebony (diospyros melanoxylon) and Ceylon ebony (diospyros ebenum) but those do not grow in East Africa.
So, I wonder if the "ebony" that was sourced from East Africa at that time was actually what we now call African Blackwood (dalbergia melanoxylon, a member of the rosewood family). Does anyone have any insight on this matter?
To further complicate things, those same 1912 catalog pages show two knives with "granadilla" as a handle option. Traditionally, grenadilla refers to African Blackwood, while grenadillo refers to an unrelated South American species (both are used for woodwind instruments). I wonder if the Granadilla in the 1912 catalog is the same as the grenadilla that we know today.
The other part of the equation is the ebony that they got from the east coast of Africa. I am not aware of an ebony species found in east Africa that is uniform black. However, there is a long history of African Blackwood (dalbergia melanoxylon) being called ebony; the consensus is that prior to a couple hundred years ago, only African Blackwood was called ebony, and people started calling members of the diospyros species ebony to increase their value on the market. The ebony used for European furniture inlay work over the last couple centuries has been East Indian ebony (diospyros melanoxylon) and Ceylon ebony (diospyros ebenum) but those do not grow in East Africa.
So, I wonder if the "ebony" that was sourced from East Africa at that time was actually what we now call African Blackwood (dalbergia melanoxylon, a member of the rosewood family). Does anyone have any insight on this matter?
To further complicate things, those same 1912 catalog pages show two knives with "granadilla" as a handle option. Traditionally, grenadilla refers to African Blackwood, while grenadillo refers to an unrelated South American species (both are used for woodwind instruments). I wonder if the Granadilla in the 1912 catalog is the same as the grenadilla that we know today.
