P.C. from the 805 area asked me to appraiser her early 20th century ivory chess set for a few months now, and I put it off, P.C., because, well, the buying or selling of ivory is, in fact, no longer PC. The import, export and sale of ivory, even within state lines, has become regulated and monitored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; there’s a network of Federal statutory laws and Executive Branch orders, not to mention the scrutiny around ivory by those organizations that fight for conservation of elephants. All ivory is in some sense unsalable, yet some ivory is not from animals at all, as we shall see.
P.C., you should know that the kinds of ivory which for years has been called “true” ivory is defined as the teeth of animals, and most ivory is from the tusks of elephants, mammoths and mastodons. Those kinds of ivory are sourced from buried animals. Yet ancient ivory is so hard to distinguish that mastodon ivory is suspect too.
Bone is NOT ivory and you can tell bone because you can see the evidence of a blood vessel system, and ivory does not have this system. Ivory for millennia is prized because it carved in any direction, which makes it valued for its beauty on piano keys (a hot button issue, as concert halls are having a hard time getting performer’s prized pianos across state lines, as we’ll learn). Ivory for millennia has been dyed as half of your set has been, and can be beautifully polished owing to its natural oils.
Other types of antique ivory are hippo, walrus, whale and hornbill birds, as well as non-animal ivory from the inner seed of the South American ivory palm. I can be fooled by synthetic ivory, which was invented as far back as 1865, termed celluloid or casein. The older the ivory-looking object is, the more care was taken to imitate “true” ivory’s graining.
P.C., if your chess set IS ivory there are ways to test for “true” ivory. You need to get your old cigarette lighter out and burn it, and if it does not mark up or emit a bad smell, it is likely ivory of some kind. Synthetic ivory will mark and smell. The same proof is derived with a hot needle, which will cause irreparable damage to non-ivory objects, so I would not try fire.
Nevertheless, P.C., your set is not worth anything on today’s market, because you cannot sell it if it looks anything like ivory. I have a dear client who has Asian Foo dogs of what appear to be ivory and although we have sent photos along to many auction houses, no one want to touch them with a 10-foot pole. Why?
Here are the rules for African ivory, promulgated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:
- a) It is illegal to import any item containing African elephant ivory for commercial purposes, including musical instruments, which bear ivory.
- b) Some objects with ivory may be imported for non-commercial purposes IF you can find an ironclad export bill of lading dated before 1967.
- c) You cannot import ivory if it has been sold from the date of February 25, 2014 until today. Thus once the object is in the U.S., ivory cannot be bought or sold.
Now the rules of ASIAN elephant ivory are strict but different; in this case, you cannot sell ivory across state lines unless you can prove the following:
- a) The piece has not been repaired or modified since 1973.
- b) It has been imported through one of only 13 ports designated to handle such antiques.
- c) You can produce valid documentation that the object is over 100 years old.
- d) Asian elephant ivory cannot be sold within any U.S. state unless you have special (called CITIES) Government certification that it was imported before 1975. This last rule is very difficult for people who have inherited ivory.
Handlers of antique instruments have contested these laws, because many antique instruments are precious to distinguished performers.
Since value is derived from past sales of similar objects, your set has no market value. Auction houses do not reputably report ANY sales of ivory items since 2014.