How to authenticate ivory

The phrase "ivory" creates in the mind images of unusual carved jewelry and fancy jewelry, figurines and pipes. The so-called ivory is from the tusks and teeth of not only the elephant but also the Rhino, walrus, whale, boar, mammoth, and mastodon. Ivory of African elephants has a warm dark color. Gentle East African ivory looks more matte than it solid and shiny West African counterpart. From Asian elephants do snow white opaque, soft and easy to work with ivory. Since 1989, established a moratorium on the production of ivory bones, to keep the population of elephants, prices have soared, and there are a lot of fakes.

1. Using the magnifier with 15 x magnification, look for streaks. Turn over the carved figure and look at the bottom, intersecting the veins look like shading. For ivory there are always streaks, but on a normal bone, plastic and resin, they are not.

2. Look at the figure under the light of a UV lamp. Natural materials such as ivory, in ultraviolet radiation appear brighter, while artificial materials are darker. Fake ivory is darker than in normal lighting.

3. Check with heating. Tweezers grab a needle or a nail and hold it over an open flame. Then the red-hot subject of lean to the most inconspicuous part of the ivories. If it is real, red-hot needle will not leave almost no trace, only invisible mark, but you will feel a sharp smell, as when drilling a tooth, because the ivory is the tooth. If the product is a fake, the hot needle will remain small melted dent, and you will feel a recognizable smell of burning plastic or resin.

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