Antique Whale Tooth Scrimshaw
one piece or an entire collection.
Please include photos with your email.
Nautical Canes/Walking Sticks (made from ivory, whalebone,
tropical shells and woods acquired during whaling voyages),
Pie Crimpers/Jagging Wheels, Seamers, Busks, Bodkins, Fids, Swifts
and any other examples of 19th century whaler's art
*collecting and specializing in antique scrimshaw since 1976*
www.angelfire.com/ca/antiquescrimshaw OR www.antiquescrimshaw.net
Scrimshaw is a form of folk art practiced by whalemen
in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Some scrimshaw was also produced
by those on shore
who had access to whale products.
Makers of scrimshaw were called scrimshanders.
They engraved images on
ivory, whalebone, whale teeth, wood and shells,
and carved items of bone and exotic woods.
Typical works include decorated
whale teeth
and practical items such as napkin rings,
canes, knitting needles, pie crimpers or jagging wheels
(for cutting pastry),
bodkins (for embroidery), swifts (yarn winders)
and tools of all sorts for shipboard use.
Whaling voyages averaged nearly four years.
To relieve the boredom of long periods of time
between whale sightings, whalemen often played cards,
checkers, and wrote in personal journals.
Those with an artistic bent did woodcarving,
sketching, knotwork, and made scrimshaw.
The taking of a whale provided scrimshanders with plenty of material.
Sperm whales provided teeth; all whales provided bone;
bowhead and right whales provided baleen, a black, flexible material
found in the mouths of these whales. Walrus tusks were also
decorated by whalers who ventured into Northern waters.
The quality of scrimshaw ranges from
crude scratchings on teeth or bone
to exquisite examples of fine craftsmanship
with the majority falling somewhere in between.
SCRIMSHAW GALLERY
KEEP SCROLLING DOWN THIS PAGE
TO SEE A GREAT VARIETY OF SCRIMSHAW
updated: November, 2009
19th. c. Whaleships
Antique Scrimshaw in Hawaii
Scrimshaw Canes and Crimpers,
a Nantucket collection
SCRIMSHAW PIE CRIMPERS/JAGGING WHEELS
c. 1850, American, figural pie crimper in the form of a shark
with a fluted, whale ivory wheel all carved from
the center core of a large sperm whale tooth
depicting one of the whaler's dreaded nemeses at sea.
mid 19th. century, all whale ivory pie crimper
architecturally carved crimpers by the same hand. Flayderman, pg. 148
19th century
SCRIMSHAW CANES/WALKING STICKS
individuality, power, status and profession.
A cane was designed to be worn rather than used.
It showed who you were
and how you viewed yourself.
Whether you sported a jewelled Fabergé cane
or one of whalebone
fashioned by a sailor on a long sea voyage,
your cane made a powerful statement.
Consequently, these items are intensely personal.
Each cane is redolent with the history of
bygone individuals and their times.
Geoffrey Breeze
* * *
c. 1850 Nantucket eel/serpent scrimshaw walking stick
carved of panbone, baleen & whale tooth ivory
from the hand of man, contain a wealth of history.
In use since before the time of Tutankhamen,
they have been put to service
over the centuries not just as ambulation aids,
but as symbols of authority and status,
presentation gifts, and fashionable accessories.
Most often, they were not utilitarian,
they were worn as an adornment
and valued for their beauty.
Canes tell us about the culture, fashion,
values and diversions of the people who owned them
and the era in which they were made.
Many are truly objects d'art,
fashioned of ivory, coral, tortoise,
silver, gold, platinum, wood, crystal,
steel, porcelain, tortoiseshell, minerals,
and precious and semi-precious stones.
They have as their subject love, death,
religion, politics, theater, war,
vocations, history, hobbies, and puzzles.
They may contain secret compartments
and surprises hidden within.
Some have been made by legendary artists,
some by unlettered folk craftsmen
and mariners lonely at sea.
They are allegorical, metaphorical and,
sometimes, just self-evidently beautiful.
Wendell Garrett
Whaler-made Sculpture
which has long been considered a definitive text, called Scrimshaw
"...the only important indigenous folk art,
except that of the Indians, we have ever had in America".
Although it is most often associated with the Yankee whale-men of the 19th century
the scrimshanders art was embraced and extensively practiced by
the British, Australian and Portuguese mariners as well.
SWIFT
BUSKS
BODKINS
SEAMER
DIPPER
~John F. Kennedy
19th c. SCRIMSHAW SPERM WHALE TEETH
Painting: Napoleon at the Great St. Bernard Pass
Date: 1801
Artist: Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825
N.S. FINNEY
Though the 1820's through the 1860's was the golden age of pictorial scrimshaw,
the genre continued even during the decline of the whaling industry
into the last part of the 19th century and beyond.
By 1870, N. S. Finney, a native of Plymouth, Massachusetts,
who had been a whaleman in the 1840's,
set himself up in San Francisco and engraved
walrus tusks (and a smaller number of whale teeth known) on commission,
becoming the first person to take scrimshandering professional.
Questions about your antique scrimshaw?
email Gregg Hurwitz at bluewave3@earthlink.net
ALBRO
NAVAL ENGAGEMENT ENGRAVER
Pieces by this mid 19th c. British, whaler/scrimshander
often depict smoke filled, naval battle scenes on the one side
and a polychrome whaling scene on the opposite side.
BANKNOTE ENGRAVER
This piece is, unfortunately, in poor condition.
Ceres A, William Gilpin
BURDETT
source: Plumtv
MYRICK/SUSAN'S TEETH
20th century copies
James Bute c.1834,
a private in the Royal Marines
aboard the H.M.S. Beagle with Charles Darwin
when the ship surveyed the Galapagos Islands
ALBATROSS ARTISAN
Cenotaph c. 1850 with whaler's memorial near the top
SCRIMSHAW-TABUA
"Sperm-whale teeth were highly prized in Polynesia.
In the Fiji Islands the characteristic manifestation is the tabua,
signifying wealth and status for the owner. It was usually a whole tooth,
polished, pierced, and hung as a pendant of braided plant fiber.
Oil and smoke from council fires
often enhanced development of a deep amber patina.
Whalemen and China traders calling at Fiji
found that whale teeth were so valuable for barter
that they were sometimes willing to part with good scrimshaw."
(S. Frank-More Scrimshaw Artists, pg. 125)
Shown here are three detailed photos of one such example.
It is not known precisely when Fijians began using the tooth of the sperm whale as a precious gift and item of exchange, but it was certainly well before sustained contact with the west began around 1800, and may even date back to the earliest occupation of the islands over 3,000 years ago.
The name for a whale's tooth, tabua, is the same throughout the Fiji Islands, originally meant 'sacred object'. Fijians have no traditions of whaling, so it seems that tabua first came from stranded whales, either in Fiji, or in nearby Tonga. Tongans used the relative abundance of sperm whales in their waters to great advantage, bartering tabua for Fijian products as diverse as sandalwood and enormous voyaging canoes, a trade that lasted well into the nineteenth century.
The incidence of whaling ships in the Pacific during the nineteenth century caused a larger supply of whale teeth to become available. At first these were introduced into Fiji by Tongans who had a better access to them, but later, early 19th century European & American whaling ships brought sperm whale teeth as highly valued trade items. Tabua were the price of life and death and indispensable adjuncts to every proposal, whether for marriage, alliance, intrigue, request, apology, appeal to the gods or sympathy with the bereaved.
The traditional Fijian manner of preparing a whale's tooth was to stain and/or smoke it to give it the highly esteemed rich color then drill a small hole at either end and attach cord of braided coconut fiber or pandanus leaves. Occasionally some teeth were polished first. Often though, they were left in their raw, un-polished state prior to staining/smoking. After being thus prepared, it was then suitable for use in formal ceremonies of welcome, funeral gatherings, requests for marriage or land, formal apologies, installation of a chief and so on. When being presented or accepted, it is held in one hand with its cord in the other.
How can you tell the difference between antique and contemporary?
The engraving (or scrim) on the tooth certainly tells most of the story.
You can also tell a lot from a tooth's patina.
The way it's been kept
and elements it either was or was not exposed to
(human handling, smoke, direct sunlight, humidity or the lack of it, etc.)
have a lot to do with the way a tooth appears today.
Study, research, talk to those with scrimshaw knowledge and experience.
Look at as much scrimshaw as you can.
You can develop an eye for what is:
antique or contemporary,
extremely well done, average or poorly done work,
genuine scrimshaw or a plastic/resin reproduction.
-a well done plastic repro-
"Tests" for Plastic Fakeshaw: Various tests for plastic have been published,
such as the "hot needle" test, and the "match" test,
and viewing fakeshaw under black light (ultraviolet light).
These tests usually don't work.
The tests were useful when they were first published (as early as 1979),
Hot needles will not penetrate the newer polymers
any better than they will penetrate real bone.
A match won't necessarily burn it, and it may fluoresce under ultraviolet light.
AS SEEN IN:
Please email if you have antique scrimshaw for sale.
*Buying antique: engraved teeth, nautical canes/walking sticks,
pie crimpers/jagging wheels, seamers,
busks, bodkins, fids, swifts
and any other examples of 19th century whaler's art*
CLICK HERE TO EMAIL GREGG
GREGG HURWITZ ANTIQUE SCRIMSHAW
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