Mammoth and ancient walrus ivory

Keith Montgomery

Keith Montgomery

Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
29,205
I would really appreciate some help with the names of suppliers of these materials. What I am looking for is pieces large enough to make solid handle for a very large knife, approx. 5 1/4" X 1 3/4".

Thanks for any help that you guys can provide.
 
are you wanting to used the fossilized stuff for availability or moral reasons? CueComponents.com in daytona has legal old elephant ivory. The owner, Joe, shops estates sales, etc for old tusks and at times has about any size or shape from 1/8 inch slices for inlay and 1 inch diameter round slices for spacers to bark scales and big chunks for entire handles. He is also a source for some interesting wood. i just ordered some old growth Brazilian rosewood (around a $2000+ option to have your Martin or Santa Cruz guitar made with this stuff) that he has been holding for about 20 years and a HUGE stick (2x2x24) of amboyna burl. the rosewood sticks are 1.5 x1.5x 18, which should work nice on most knives.(3-4 hidden tang handles, depending on the size of the knife or a BUNCH of slabs) He still has a couple of hundred of those squares and some rounds too. Prices seem to be below those of knife suppliers. The rosewood sticks were on sale for $30 and the amboyna was on sale for $220. He still has the 1.5 x1.5x 15-18 sticks of amboyna for $60. The one i got was a special piece. not bad when you consider that most suppliers charge aound $40+ for a 1 x1.5 by 5 piece of nice ambonya. unless i make huge handles, I might be able to get at least four handles and a few slabs for full tang or as many as 8 full tang dropped handles if i keep them a bit narrow. not too shabby
Joe mandt
 
I am having a knife made and the maker is having trouble finding a piece of ivory large enough for the job. The reasons for ancient ivory are that I live in Canada and the maker is in the US. It is a major pain to import post CITES ivory into Canada. Even legal ivory requires a huge amount of paperwork that would have to be filled out by the knifemaker. It is also likely that the knife would sit in Customs for a long time. The other reason that I want ancient ivory is that I want something other than creamy white to yellow for colour.
 
Kieth,Give Boone Trading a call.Also,have you considered oosik? It is readily available and much more affordable,about $40-100 for a nice whole oosik.A fossil walrus tip that is solid and suitable for a handle will set you back about $300-500.A mammoth tip will cost $200-400.Give I J Trade a call about mammoth.You can always shop on ebay,but caveat emptor.
Stacy
 
ahhhh......yeah...you might have more trouble getting the raw materiels into Cananda than you would the finished product back into the US. FYI for anyone else....Joe's website says that the ivory he stocks is not bleached, so it is not pure white. His comments on this are quite informative.
 
Keith, I've had trouble finding a good sorce for large bowie size fossil ivory, I buy it at the shows I attend where I can hold and look at it before I buy. I have bought walrus ivory on Ebay that looked good in the pics but wouldn't make a good knife handle. Maybe someone here will come up with a good contact, I'll be watching :D Good luck.

Don Hanson lll sunfishforge.com
 
Keith,
It sounds like this is for a stick tang knife.If so I do not think mammoth will be suitable. I think I have some legal old walrus that will meet your needs. Drop me a line at akivory@gci.net.
Chuck
 
Try www.artportberlin.com

you'll have to send Sergei an email as he doesn't keep big pieces of raw mammoth listed on his website but he imports the stuff directly from Siberia and usually has a lot on hand in many grades and sizes.

The Netsukes he sells are also really well done. I take the pics etc for his website, so I've seen them in person.
 
akivory said:
Keith,
It sounds like this is for a stick tang knife.If so I do not think mammoth will be suitable. I think I have some legal old walrus that will meet your needs. Drop me a line at akivory@gci.net.
Chuck
Click to expand...

Chuck, I will contact you later this evening or tomorrow. Thanks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top