More Ivory

Ivory remains a bone of contention between collectors and the bureaucrats who make our lives more difficult.  The ban on ivory by the Feds had suffered a set back, so the new tactic is to institute bans in each state.  This is a common divide and conquer tactic. 

I don’t the feds should be sticking their nose into you selling your grandfather’s ivory chest set or preventing you from buying across state lines a set a ivory dominoes someone brought home from Korea in the 1960’s.

A pro-ivory stance makes me a rotten SOB for supporting elephant poaching doesn’t it?  But before you go much further you should know, no, I don’t support poaching.  I support the 1989 ban on ivory importation to the US and urge other countries to stop the illegal trade in ivory.  We stopped the importation of ivory in 1989.

(Propaganda mode on)

“The United States is the world’s second-largest market, behind China, for illegal wildlife artifacts. The legal sale of ivory in the United States and around the world helps to disguise black-market sales, U.S. prosecutors and other law enforcement officials say.”

      Washington post Feb 11 2014

(Propaganda mode off)

The above is a lie.  The vast majority of the poached ivory isn’t coming into the US.  Despite what the Feds said in the above Feb 11 2014 issue of the Washington Post, most of it isn’t headed to the US.

Most of it is going to China.  http://news.yahoo.com/swiss-seize-400-000-ivory-haul-transit-china-100653261.html

In fact, it’s estimated that 70% of all poached ivory is headed to China.  That’s a lot of dead elephants.  And China seems to be all right with it.

That doesn’t surprise me at all.  When a government assumes that each human has no intrinsic value and only a person’s service to the government matters, why would they value animal lives?

No, reports of wide spread pollution, heavy metal poisoning, and adulteration of baby formula with melamine from China don’t surprise me at all.  What does surprise me is the sudden insistence by our politicians that somehow owning an ivory handled knife, or a hairpin somehow makes us low level criminals.  And we aren’t going to discuss what it means to own sperm whale scrimshaw or mammoth ivory!  You bastard, you!   I don’t know how you did it, but you inspired people who were dead long before you were born to kill whales and all those mammoths!

Even Road Show Antiques has to say something about ivory. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/stories/articles/2015/06/22/ivory-law

The problem with the current and proposed bans is the need to know when the ivory was brought into the country.  You kept the provenance on that pair of carved ivory earrings you bought your mother or wife in 1985, right?  

Of course, if you own ivory-handled daggers from the Third Reich or other historic artifacts you may not have any problems.  But that scrimshaw pendant bought from a local artisan made from the white key of a junked player piano isn’t likely to have the documentation you need.

So, if you live in a free state, one that still allows you to sell your possessions, no matter if it’s ivory or not make sure you remind your elected officials to keep it that way.  If you don’t, laws can be changed.  Make sure your government knows your feelings.

Since I started this tirade, the Feds have proposed a new ban in interstate ivory sale.  Tune in for more. 

Ivory

If you have been following the news on the ivory ban you know people are polarized on the subject of ivory.

One side claims elephants are being slaughtered left and right for their tusks and ivory should be banned from the US markets.  The other side claims we should protect the elephant by assisting the countries who are attempting to stem the poaching.  This side also claims the vast, vast majority of ivory, legal and illegal, is sold to the Far East and China.

700 African elephant tusk seized by Malaysian authorities on their way to China

The politics and enforcement of stopping ivory poaching by making ivory illegal are convoluted and difficult.  One small example is teeth from the sperm whale.  These cone shaped teeth are prized for their value in scrimshaw.  By 1988 civilized nations stopped hunting the endangered sperm whales.

So to protect these whales, scrimshaw art drawn in the 1800s and 1900s on teeth from whales killed then are taken from their owners and destroyed.  No rational explanation seems forth coming on how this helps whales in 2015.

This same approach is applied to ivory.  The USFWS (US Fish and Wildlife Service) has moved to block the sale and when possible, effect the confiscation of ivory.  Your problem is you have to prove your ivory isn’t elephant and wasn’t collected since the US ban on elephant ivory in 1986.

USFWS and their agents simply assumed it is illegal elephant ivory and will take your property as well as anything else you might have.

Since my original posting in June 2014

USFWS has had its funding for this search and destroy mission blocked.  So states are jumping on the bandwagon.  I suspect politicians realize the relatively small number of ivory collectors, knife makers, musicians, and scrimshaw artists and the wealth of their pocketbooks make them vulnerable.  After all the few votes politicians lose are nothing compared to the votes and publicity they gain by taking an meaningless anti-poaching stand.   States like New York and New Jersey have these politicians and frankly, they don’t care about the people in their state.  California, Iowa, Washington, and Connecticut are introducing these bills.

So it comes as no surprise that a 72-year old woman was arrested in New York for trying to sell a necklace containing mammoth ivory at an antique show.  

You should realize that all mammoths were extinct long before our country was founded. 

I have an old walking stick that was owned by my wife’s grandfather.  He came over third class from the old country to make a better life for himself.  My mother-in-law describes him as “a sport.”  So it’s not surprising there are several quarter inch-square chips of ivory forming a collar set in the dark wood.

If the government has its way, I’ll never be able to sell that stick or quite possibly give it away.  I don’t have any ivory handled knives, but I do have several white bone knives.  Will I have to prove, someday, after they are confiscated that they are not ivory?

I urge you to contact your representatives, both federal and state, and urge them not to support the ban on ivory trade.  Urge them to support laws that protect legally owned ivory.

I once read that the slippery slope argument was a logical falsity.  Maybe at the debate contest, but to people working in the actual world it’s a truth.  Don’t let political bureaucrats and politicians push you down the ivory slopes.

Knife and Blade Show

The knife gun show at Medina, Ohio was interesting.  While I sold gave away (almost) some old stock, a lot of the fun comes from watching the people.

I saw one man wearing a tee-shirt saying: Revolutionary War Veterans Association.  He didn’t look that old.  I found out later it seems to be a shooting society dedicated to remembering the more or less forgotten participants of the American Revolutionary War. 

I also told a friend I’d help him price several bayonets his buddy’s dad left behind.  To my surprise I found more than I expected about bayonets.

Both bayonets were Japanese type 30 from WWII.  One was rather crudely made and I expected it to be from production late in WWII.  I found out it was a training bayonet which were often made at schools and homes.  There was no interest in making a quality training bayonet as these were never expected to see combat.  They were often made from cheap, poor quality steel and came with equally shabby scabbards.  These were unsharpened.

WWII souvenirs

The other bayonet was a little gem.  It had the Jinsen Arsenal mark stamped on the blade.  This arsenal isn't rare, but is not considered common.  The best way to describe it I was told was 'un-common.'

The issued bayonet show quality workmanship.  The lower is the poor quality trainer. 

Unfortunately they were poorly taken care of.  Both scabbards were rusty and pitted.  The blades were in the same condition.  It’s hard to understand why dad didn't run a coat of oil on them years ago.  I brushed them down with a brass brush and a little WD-40 and took a lot of surface rust off.  I guess they were not important to him.

The stamp indicates its from the Jinsen armory.  The training bayonet doesn't have any kind of marking. 

Included in the bundle was a German fireman's dress bayonet.  Yeah.  You read it right.  Fire fighters dress bayonet. 

Fireman's bayonet?  What?  He stabs the flames?

The key was the polished blade and the absence of a mounting slot.

There’s no slot to attach the bayonet to a rifle.  That’s because German firefighters didn’t have rifles.

Now, I have no tolerance for Nazi collectables.  I hate those guys, but I’ll give the devil his due:  the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany sure understood symbols and the trappings of power and how to use them.

I also ran into John from Shadow Tech.  He was at the Blade Show and my wife liked one of his damascus fixed blades with an ivory colored micarta handle.  She wanted a minor modification and John and Dave agreed to it.  We paid for it and they had it at Medina.  It’s a ‘double’ Blade Show knife for her.  She ordered it at Blade, but they had to buy ladder damascus from Alabama Damascus at the show to make it.  It’s a sweet knife and the faux carbon fiber kydex makes it pop!

Shadow Tech - My wife's new knife.

Keep your eye on Shadow Tech.  John told me they are going to be covered by unamed national magazines.  A collaboration between ST and Colonial knife is in progress.  I understand Colonial is getting some of Shadow Techs’s patterns and they are going to make some autos for them.

Dave and John from Shadow Tech at the Blade Show with a few good knives!

I can't wait to see their auto!

While not a lawyer, I understand that the Feds regulate shipping of autos and the states seem to decide if automatic (AKA switch blade) knives are legal.  It seems silly in light of the fact most states have CCW and more than one police officer tells me that if they arrest you even that cheap nail clipper with file in your pocket will be written up as a concealed weapon.  I keep running into a woman who swears her community made her take a 12-hour class and get a permit to carry a knife in the city limits.  I understand there was a fee for the class and ‘license process.’  

Speaking of government interference, the proposed ivory ban has people worried.  I’m told there are only 8 sources of ivory: elephant, mastodon and mammoth (both extinct), walrus, hippo, narwhal, sperm whale and warthog.

Here’s where it gets confusing.  We stopped importing whale products in 1986.  We stopped importing elephant ivory 30 years ago.  Nobody cares about fossilized tusk and mastodon tooth because the youngest stuff is 20,000 years old.  And currently wild boars are a problem.  So we should be okay on any ivory in the country.  Right?

Jim Hammond at Blade Show talking about the ivory ban and President Kennedy's love of scrimshaw.

Well, no.  See, the Chinese and Russia still have this unquenchable thirst for ivory.  So the U.S. and others think by punishing American ivory consumers and owners we’ll send a message to the rest of the world.  By not allowing the internal sales of legally obtained ivory, it becomes worthless.  

The government sees us as the bottom level of a vast Chinese crime syndicate. (If so, I need a raise!!)  By pressuring you to give up your source of illegal ivory, they can trace it back to Lo Fat Way or some other imagined ganister and terrorist.

Sandra Brady, scrimshaw artist supreme, at the Blade Show talking about the impact the proposed ban on ivory will have.

Your source?  That’s the Vatican cameo your grandmother left you, soon to be made worthless.  Uncle George’s ivory handled revolver from the Spanish American war - can’t sell it with those grips!  The possibilities go on.  This includes all those scrimshaw ivory handles that decorate knives, jewelry and musical instruments. 

Now frankly, it’s not too important to me.  I don’t own any ivory.  My family doesn’t own any ivory.  My retirement or future plans don’t revolve around ivory.  I just dislike the fact the government can seize your property on mere suspicion and you are forced to prove your innocence.  If you cannot, you may go to jail.  

In any case you’ll lose your property just to make a ideological statement to China, Japan and Russia that killing elephants for ivory is unacceptable.  Remember the world banned hunting whales, but Japan still takes about 60 whales a year for “research.”  

(In Japan's parliament last month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would like the country to resume commercial whaling "in order to obtain scientific information indispensable to the management of the whale resources.")

The only one concerned with world opinion seems to be the U.S.

You want to save the elephants?  Great!!!!

Tell your government to send the money they would spend enforcing these ridiculous and un-American laws to the African agencies who are in the field protecting elephants from poachers.  That will make a difference, not confiscating ivory from an animal dead for 30 years. 

Oops!  Looks like rant mode was on!