Walrus ivory

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sirupatespecial

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Oct 16, 2013
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I have a piece of what I speculate is Walrus ivory. Bout 4 ft long. Found it in the basement of a deceased great uncle. Seems it would make a several(?) nice handles. Any idea what it would be worth? Any legalities about selling it? Weighs approx 10 lbs.
 
Four FEET? Probably not walrus at that size, but if so it's a seriously large piece. However, I've handled elephant tusks of that length and they way far more than 10 lbs. Pictures would help a lot.
 
We have covered this quite a bit on here, first step is pictures. Then we would need to know it's origin if possible. Nearing four feet and ten pounds is possible with a walrus tusk but that's a biiiiiiig one. There are serious legal implications so you will need to proceed carefully. Show us pics. Mark
 
This topic gets a lot of opinions.
Email me with photos and I'll see if I can help you figure it out.
 
There are opinions, and then there's the law. There are grey areas in the law. Several people that follow this forum have been lackadaisical when it came to these laws and have gotten into serious trouble. You need to ask the right questions of knowledgeable people and do the right thing to stay out of trouble. This is not to say that Stacy's advise won't be good, I am sure it will be.
 
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The intent and purpose of this forum is to share and learn please do not take this to private means. Keep it public so we can all grow and learn about these laws. Mark Knapp is the authority emeritus here regarding ivory and shipping laws and I need to read his takes..
 
Larry D. Davis said:
The intent and purpose of this forum is to share and learn please do not take this to private means. Keep it public so we can all grow and learn about these laws. Mark Knapp is the authority emeritus here regarding ivory and shipping laws and I need to read his takes..
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Agreed...

Now where are those photos?
 
Larry D. Davis said:
The intent and purpose of this forum is to share and learn please do not take this to private means. Keep it public so we can all grow and learn about these laws. Mark Knapp is the authority emeritus here regarding ivory and shipping laws and I need to read his takes..
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I too, like Don, agree with this^
 
I told the OP to email me photos and descriptions because often in a thread like this, people who have never seen an intact tusk say, "Oh, that is a XYZ....." or "You will go to jail...."
He does not have email or PM enabled, so I had to post for him to email me in the thread. There was nothing nefarious about it.
This same topic has been posted many times. There is considerable disagreement about the laws on pre-ban ivory, and I didn't want it to get into a major flap.
I have only seen two very small and low resolution cell phone photos of this tusk so far, but believe it is elephant, which makes it legal for him to own or sell as long as it was in the states before 1989.

As far as African elephant ivory is concerned, it is legal to own it in the US, as long as it was brought here prior to 1989. Transporting it and selling it within the US is also legal by Federal law. Some states, specifically Alaska, California, and New York have stricter state laws concerning ivory. Walrus has to be pre-1989 to be legal to buy or sell unless you are an Inuit, or it has been made into art work by an Inuit. Fossil walrus and mammoth are fully legal.

I greatly respect Mark's knowledge on walrus and Alaskan artifact items - he lives there and deals with his F&W guys regularly. The laws can seem confusing and/or contradictory when looking at federal vs state laws, and from state to state. Mark sells fossil ivory as a business, and must be very careful not to cross any lines in Alaska.

However, the ivory laws in Alaska are different than most of the rest of the US. I have researched this quite a bit, and talked directly to the F&W people in DC as well as VA and feel confident that I stay well within all applicable laws in the US and my state of VA.
What gets me most riled is the folks who say things like, "If you get caught that tusk you will go to jail." This is completely false unless you recently and illegally imported the tusk, stole it from someone, or you live in a state where there are super strict laws banning all ivory, especially concerning sales. Alabama and VA are not in that group.

My last comment is:
The most important protection in these situations is paperwork. You need good provenance on all ivory you own and use for making knives. Equally important is knowledge and understand of the Federal laws and those of the state you live in, as well as any state where you plan to transport or sell ivory.
 
Stacy is correct in all things but one, in error he wrote that walrus ivory needed to be pre-1989. For walrus the year is 1972, I think that is what he meant to say. I have seen the same pictures he saw and as he said, the pictures are not clear, I felt it could be a walrus, but I can't tell given the pictures. I should have reserved judgment.

Unfortunately the original poster is no better off than he was to start with. It is definitely not ancient or "fossil" ivory. It is white ivory so regardless of it's species, we would need to know more about it's origin to know what, if anything, can legally be done with it.
 
Thanks Mark, yes, CITES is 1989, MMPA is 1972. I inadvertently lumped them together.

In the low-res photos the socket looked more like elephant, but it could be a large cow walrus tusk. Hopefully the OP will get some better photos.
 
You know, it's a shame cell phones double for everything these days. They are truly the jack of all trades and the master of none. Just no beating a real camera with real focusing ability.

Nice to see the experts taking control of this topic instead of letting it spin like this topic always does.
 
tryppyr said:
You know, it's a shame cell phones double for everything these days. They are truly the jack of all trades and the master of none. Just no beating a real camera with real focusing ability.

Nice to see the experts taking control of this topic instead of letting it spin like this topic always does.
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Hy Tryppyr, So true about cell phones.

I think that even though, sometimes many people spout off about things they know nothing about, as long as we are all engaged and contributing, maybe we will learn something. It's like everything else in life, you have to sift through all the BS to find the things of value. Maybe the people that spout out can also learn to keep quiet a little and listen. Those things don't bother me that much, I use it to learn about people. If I see someone blowing hard about things in my area of expertise, I know how much credence to give them in other areas. The old "Consider the source" thing.

Later, Bud
 
Do you guys know if tortoise shell falls into this same cataglory. I have taken apart a destroyed antique cigarret case and am using the pieces for inlay. As always TIA. ...Teddy
 
Mark Knapp said:
Hy Tryppyr, So true about cell phones.

I think that even though, sometimes many people spout off about things they know nothing about, as long as we are all engaged and contributing, maybe we will learn something. It's like everything else in life, you have to sift through all the BS to find the things of value. Maybe the people that spout out can also learn to keep quiet a little and listen. Those things don't bother me that much, I use it to learn about people. If I see someone blowing hard about things in my area of expertise, I know how much credence to give them in other areas. The old "Consider the source" thing.

Later, Bud
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If only we would all remember to ask ourselves a question before responding to someone else's: "Do I know this from experience, or am I repeating something I heard?" Regardless of how credible you think the source is, if you're just repeating something someone else told you, you need to qualify that by at least saying "I heard, this from X". Unless it came from God directly, I don't think you can take anything as "The Gospel" otherwise, to use a turn of phase. ;p


We all want to contribute, but hearsay and knowledge are often highly confused in this medium(internet).
 
ALL TORTOISE SHELL is illegal to buy or sell....no matter how old or what it came out of.
 
Hey didn't mean to leave ya'll hanging. I did e-mail a couple of crappy cell phone pics. I'm currently working from 8am-7pm:barf:(at least I have a job), I haven't even researched "how to post pics" plus I can't find the cord to my camera to download the pics when I take them:thumbdn:Crap, it's always something. I do appreciate the replies I got, know I didn't, and don't have a whole lot of info about the origin but hopefully I can get around to posting pics here on the forum
 
javand said:
If only we would all remember to ask ourselves a question before responding to someone else's: "Do I know this from experience, or am I repeating something I heard?" Regardless of how credible you think the source is, if you're just repeating something someone else told you, you need to qualify that by at least saying "I heard, this from X". Unless it came from God directly, I don't think you can take anything as "The Gospel" otherwise, to use a turn of phase. ;p


We all want to contribute, but hearsay and knowledge are often highly confused in this medium(internet).
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Well put
 
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