Victorian Parasol with Carved Bone or Ivory Handle

[talesofthesevenseas]

I just won this Victorian parasol on Ebay. It came from the estate of the seller's mother-in-law, who loved collecting Victorian antiques on her trips to England. Like me, she couldn't always afford to buy top-of-the-line antiques, but she often came home with some neat finds that had flaw or two. This was one of them.

I am OK with the flaw on this one, I felt that it was such a beautiful piece that it more than made up for it and that even with the flaw, and it will look awesome with my Victorian bustle dress costuming. (see bottom pic) I can always tie a silk bow around the flaw to conceal it in a reenactment.

The seller did not know if it was bone or ivory. I had him double-check for mold lines just to make sure this was not some kind of repro and there are none.

The fabric is fully intact and the parasol is fully functional. A couple of the tips have pulled loose, but they are still there, it just needs a bit of stitching to get the fabric back in place. I suspect the fabric is probably a nicely done replacement since the white does not seem to have yellowed.

I paid $138.50 but was using my Ebay gift cards I got for Christmas so it was pretty-near painless.

Here are my questions:
Is it bone or ivory?
Age?
Value with the flaw?
Value if I were to have it professionally repaired?
Could it be restored/repaired by making a mold of the carving from another place on the handle?

Here are the photos:

Two over-all photos of the parasol,



Close-up of the parasol tip:


Underside and lining:


The handle, the flaw is visible in the second photo, about 2" from where the parasol shaft smooths out:



Close-ups of the handle:



Close-up on the flaw. This one and the one above are probably the best shots for determining if this is bone or ivory. Would those lines  on the right in the photo below and yellow discoloration in the photo above be indicative of ivory? It would have to be a pretty darn big tusk that it came from, the seller says this is a single piece.


This is me in the Victorian costuming that I bought the parasol for. Since taking this photo I replaced the bustle pad with a bustle cage underneath, so mentally add about 6" to my backside, LOL:

[regularjoe2]

Cool item , talesof7c's .

Quite the fancy babe in the bustle , too .

Impossible to tell what your item is made from , for me , from only a photo (unless you've got one from an electron microscope) .
It either is , or is intended to represent one (tooth) from a Narwhal tusk .

Narwhal tusk was used to make the royal scepter (in England , 16th century , I thnk) and was a major uber-bling item , way back when .

If you know one , perhaps taking it to someone in your locale who knows their ivory will help answer the question(s) about repair .

[talesofthesevenseas]

Thanks RegularJoe, I don't know anyone yet, but I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area and I should be able to find someone to take a look at it locally. I see what you are saying the spiral design does look like it at least imitates narwhal. That's cool! I tried searching for photos of carved narwhal tusk and didn't find much.

I'm guessing that since it is a straight piece, if it is carved from curved elephant ivory, I'll see it in the grain, like you would when curves are carved out of wood? Does the grain of narwhal tusk spiral? I have no experience with ivory.

An interesting footnote to this, as of January 1, Ebay is banning the sale of even legal antique ivory. The exceptions are pianos with ivory keys and wood furniture with ivory inlays created before 1900:
http://announcements.ebay.com/?s=ivory
http://www.blogher.com/ebay-bans-ivory-sales-huzzah

[D&b antiques]

In the flaw were seeing, machine made threads. thru ivory not very likely. so we are talking 1880 1885. for machine made & I think it's much later. I think 1910 or so.

But still not a bad price too pay.

[D&b antiques]

Honestly, with and all thread shaft ? which I suspect it is. we are much later then 1910. handle is more likely to be a resin. personally I think the repair would be more then the value.

It serves it's purpose. so it's a small price to pay.

[talesofthesevenseas]

Well, it sounds like I had better let someone take a look at it when it gets here if it did turn out to ne resin it would be useless to me since things like plastc and zippers etc are frowned upon when you're doing reenactment stuff and costuming is kept as historically accurate as possible. I guess I will see mold lines if it is resin and would not see grain or pitting. I would think.I could run it by an antique store or pawn shop and at least eliminate the possibility of it being resin.

[regularjoe2]

Narwhal tusks are , for the most part , usually found with a counter-clockwise twist , and have a hollow core that extends almost the full length of the tusk .
I've only seen one that was a clockwise twist .

I'd check for a roundish 'plug' at the base of your umbrella handle , one that would be on the axis of the shaft of the unit .
If there's no plug (you might have to get out your loupe) , pretty fair possibility exists that narwhal is not what the mat'l is made from .

I've also used an old trick , sorta like candling eggs , to check if a carved item is hollow (you need a very powerful light source to do so) .

[D&b antiques]

If it's cold to the touch, even in a warm room. it's a good chance it's ivory.

[talesofthesevenseas]

Thanks both of you that is very helpful. I'm a total rookie at this so it will be a good learning experience. It would be interesting to know how to identify "vegetable ivory" too.

Repro lace parasols sell for about twenty bucks so it wouldn't be good if it were a resin repro! The original collector had a collection of antique fans so I hope she could spot ivory or bone vs resin

[regularjoe2]

Your question about 'vegetable ivory' is a good one ... generally 'detected' by it's hardness (in 'raw' form) , chemically sometimes in it's 'bonded' form .

Here's a site with some good info about it : http://waynesword.palomar.edu/pljan99.htm (sorry about the earlier link , was my mistake) . 

Most , but not all of the ivory/bone handled/shafted parasols I've seen (1800's) tend to have baleen components in the parasol portion . Many of these were hinged 2 part shafts , with a ferrule that slid to connect/secure them .

I have seen old parasol 'cores' that have been repaired/restored with some modern parts too .

I'm not real sure what you've got there , though , talesof7c's .

[talesofthesevenseas]

RJ2 can you repost that link? I don't seem to be able to access it. Thanks! Yeah I'll be real interested to see what I've got when it gets here!

[talesofthesevenseas]

Well, I'm a little better educated at the end of my lunch hour than I was at the beginning. I went in to one of my fav antique stores, which I remembered had a lot of ivory items and talked to the owner. I offered to pay him a few bucks to help me determine what the parasol is when it arrives, but he refused it and said just to bring it in, he loves ivory/bone antiques and would just love to see it and he'll help me out.

We talked for about 20 minutes about what to look for in ivory vs. bone, and he brought out some ivory that I held to get a feel for it. He showed me how to examine it for little cracks, streaks etc. and we looked at it under a magnifying glass. He also talked to me about how difficult it is to value ivory, because some people don't like it at all because of the elephant issues and others love it.

I brought up the photos on my BlackBerry, and looking at the level of carving he said he didn't think this would turn out to be bone, that it was too detailed for someone to have spent that much time carving on bone.

He was incredibly helpful, so I'm giving high marks to his store:

Antique Memories & Collectibles
2314 Stevens Creek Blvd San Jose CA 95128
408-977-1758

I'll write some glowing reviews online tonight and should go back and pick something from his store too since I haven't done that yet.

[KC]

The thing that throws caution to me is the same that D&b pointed out...the threaded component showing in the middle of the flaw.

Great you have someone to look at it.  Early 1900's had lots of celluloid items that were to mimic the older imaterials used - truly hope it doesn't turn out to be that!!!!!!

Friends mother-in-law (famous head makeup artist in Hollywood) notes costume makers have lots of knowledge on this due to fact they have to make according to time line....
suggest here's a site to browse at  http://www.shootingstarhistory.com/parasol/

[talesofthesevenseas]

Wow very cool I had not seen that part of their site. This one measures 31" in length the same in diameter. Ageed, that would be a drag if it did turn out to be celluloid! It does seem odd to have it theaded down the center, although I wonder if the spring latch mechanism would have made this at least partially necessary since it pops out of the shaft. I truly haven't got a clue. This should be interesting.

[talesofthesevenseas]

I found a good Web site showing clear examples of bone, ivory and celluloid side by side. I see why this can be so difficult!
http://www.antiquegamblingchips.com/distinguish_iv_bon_cel.htm