I recently acquired a scrimshawed whale tooth, knowing full well that it was NOT an antique, despite the scribed date of 1859. I made my […]

In life, you can learn from your own mistakes & successes, or learn from the mistakes & successes of others. Collectors fall into this same […]

In early 2008, I acquired a vintage, 5-inch & 6.2-ounce whale tooth, carved to the shape of an eagle head. Most serious scrimshaw collectors own […]

I recently obtained a small antique whale tooth displaying a minor scrimshawed scene of a ship on water. The image was quite finely scribed, and […]

This guide outlines one basic method used to estimate the age of authentic whale teeth. Scrimshaw collectors are always interested in knowing whether a whale […]

Part 3 of 3 Another type of fraudulent antique scrimshaw is actually an artistic form of forgery. The 1975 Convention on International Trade in Endangered […]

Part 2 of 3 Two more types of scrimshaw “reproductions” are re-shaped cow bone and re-shaped hippo teeth, etched and inked to resemble scrimshawed whale […]

Part 1 of 3 The 1970s saw the implementation of the U.S. Federal Marine Mammals Protection Act of 1972 (MMPA), and the U.S.Federal Endangered Species […]

Infant mortality in antebellum (pre-Civil War) America was quite high, especially in tight-knit New England cities, where contagions could be easily spread from child-to-child. Poor […]

Traditionally, scrimshaw is the art of scribing an image onto a whale tooth, then enhancing that image by rubbing ink or lampblack into the scratched […]