George,
By the pound or by the ounce, the price still comes out in the wash. To be able to use it legally on a knife handle becomes more of the issue.
At one point, there were only 52 federal permits allowing sale of Sperm Whale's teeth in interstate commerce (we're talking late 70's/ early 80's). A person buying teeth through one of these permit holders could resell the teeth as a subsequent purchaser, once his teeth were registered as such through the proper channels in Washington. (Are we having fun yet? Hang on, it gets better).
No tooth could be sold in raw form as, at one point, all the tooth had to have was "scrimshaw" on it. Then the law was changed requiring significant scrimshaw coverage on the tooth.
The tooth had to be bought within your resident state and, in turn, only sold within your resident state. This allowed disposal of remaining inventories without undue hardship. As I understood it, you couldn't (1) buy an illegal tooth anywhere and re-sell it legally be it on a knife or otherwise, (2) if you bought it legally within your own state, you could resell it in your own state, but (3) if you bought it legally but transported it across state lines back to your residence, you could only keep it for "personal consumption", and not re-sell it.
Having been in this business now since the late 70's, I was exhibiting at the Knifemaker's Guild Show in Kansas City that year when the federal agents raided the show and confiscated all the whale's teeth knives that they deemed illegal. The two agents came through dressed as maintenance workers and inventoried all the whale's teeth knives before tagging and bagging them. After this incident, I called the folks in D.C. to find out the legal scoop on it all and actually ended up speaking with one of those agents. Go figure.
Since you live in Bedford, you're at a locale with as good a remaining supply of teeth as there probably is anywhere in the U.S. Just make sure what current legal requirements are regarding who you're purchasing from and so forth and you may be ok to turn them on a knife.
All my teeth I bought back in the late 70's/early 80's were registed with the DOC in DC at that time as a subsequent purchaser but I've just held onto them as they're so cool and unique. Don't forget, the old original whaler's scrimshaw art on whale's teeth is considered one of only two indigeneous art forms in the U.S., along with cave paintings in the desert southwest. Overseas, particularly in the Orient, whales teeth were being ground up for fertilizer by the front-end loader fulls, while over here they looked like Christmas gifts with all the red tape encircling them.
That's my 2 cents on all this.
Jim
