| Ivory comes from animal teeth and tusk and has been | | | | of pitting something that real ivory will not have. |
| used traditionally by many different cultures. It can be | | | | The hot pin test can help you determine the difference |
| very difficult to tell real ivory from synthetic or fake | | | | between plastic, synthetic, bone and ivory. Its best to |
| ivory. The problem is that real ivory varies so much in | | | | perform this test on the bottom of the object that is |
| color and grain. There are ways of telling fake ivory | | | | not visible as it may cause damage to plastic objects. |
| from real ivory just by performing a few tests. Of | | | | Heat a needle until it is extremely hot than touch the |
| course to be 100% sure a chemical test has to be | | | | needle against the object you are testing. A hot needle |
| done. Ivory was used for centuries in Chinese dragon | | | | can not penetrate real ivory like it will a plastic or resin. |
| artwork and Eskimo Carving. | | | | When you touch bone with a hot needle smell the |
| Most fake ivory is made up of either plastic or a resin | | | | area that you touched. It should have a very unique |
| of old ivory that is ground down and mixed with | | | | smell like burning hair. When you touch ivory with a hot |
| another synthetic. Bone carvings are also easily | | | | needle you will smell something more like a burning |
| confused with ivory carvings. Bone carvings are | | | | teeth dentist office type smell. Passing this test is a |
| generally have far less value than those of ivory. | | | | pretty good indication that you have real ivory. |
| Plastic and resins are usually smoother than real ivory. | | | | If your collecting ivory a magnifying glass of 15x is a |
| Looking at bone under magnification you will see a lot | | | | must and a UV light is recommended. |