The two carved tusks looked like larger versions of two African ivory pieces I had at home. Both bore the features of an African man and woman carved in the side of the ivory. I picked mine up years ago when I first started my trek to auction houses. Several ivory items were up for sale then, and one bidder was determined to take them all.
I managed to get two figures: one of a woman with a 6 ½” headdress and the other of a balding man half her size facing her, both attached by screws to wooden pedestals. They have sat for years on my fireplace mantle – long before the most recent public outcries over poachers killing the animals for their tusks and forcing them into extinction.
I assumed that these two large tusks at the auction house had obviously belonged to someone like me. Though they looked like ivory, the auction house staff described them this way:
“Pr Carved Natural Material Tusks. Carved busts of man & woman. Mounted on wood– Dimensions: H: 20 inches: W: 4 inches.”
Were they ivory or not? It’s hard to tell by just looking, but they appeared to be ivory to me by perhaps they were not. This particular auction house has sold ivory carvings before that it identified as such.
I don’t see much ivory anymore at auction, even though you can find plenty for sale on the web through individual auction houses. In fact, auction houses can legally sell African elephant ivory, but with restrictions.
In 2014, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Federation – acting on a “national strategy” by the Obama administration – restricted the import, export and commercial sale of elephant ivory, with a few exceptions. At least two states have also banned it, legislation is pending in a few others, and many others haven’t bothered to do so. The new rule also encompassed such items as rhino horn, whale teeth and tortoise shell, and put a cap on the number of African elephant trophies that can be imported each year.
Once the restrictions were announced, musicians with ivory pieces on their instruments, along with antiques dealers and gun collectors, cried foul. Across the world, though, there appears to be vocal and organized groups of people who support bans in their own countries and protest the sale of African ivory. Such online companies as eBay, Amazon and Google also ban the sale on their sites.
You can still keep your ivory and bequeath it to relatives. Trying to sell it may not be as easy. The rules vary for import, export and sale within your state and between states. Fish and Wildlife has provided a chart and Q&A with information on what’s permissible and what isn’t. I could sell my two carvings through an auction house but I’d have to show documented proof that they were lawfully imported before a certain year. It’s up to me to provide the proof. I suppose auction houses can get around it that way or ignore the rules altogether.
The ban was made, according to a federal official in 2014, because of the “escalating and highly organized wildlife trafficking crime that threatens the survival of the African elephant, rhinoceros and a host of other species around the world.”
The agency noted then that 35,000 elephants were killed in 2012, and the trade in illegal ivory had doubled since 2007, making it an international criminal market taking in billions of dollars. Poaching has led to a substantial drop in the elephant population, from 1.3 million to about 419,000 in 2007. The United States is said to be the second largest market for ivory trade in the world.
The popular Antiques Roadshow got so many emails and letters about the legality of ivory after its appraisals that it posted the federal rules – which can be confusing – on its website.
As for the carvings at auction, the pair sold for $200 to an internet bidder.
