Strange pins in Cattaragus corn knife, ivory or celluloid.

[Jacknifeben]

Strange pins, don’t know if it because of the material?

[knife7knut]

Handles look like ivory to me.The appearance of the pins may just be due to defects in the pin material.I know that ivory ,like pearl is very difficult to pin without cracking the material.Nice little knife!

[FRJ]

I remember seeing unfinished pins that were punched on the ends to expand the pin and the pin was then ground to the finish of the cover material. The pin was still expanded at that surface to secure the covers. The pattern left by the punch is still evident on the pins on the Corn Knife. My theory entirely.

[Ivoryman]

Luster isn't right for Celluloid. And in your third picture you can see the difference in depth of light penetration coming through the end where the curve of the scale drops off. The grain allows the light in and reflects off adjacent grain lines and almost gives you that optical illusion zig zag effect. Celluloid never did that. Definitely ivory IMHO. Great score, congrats, always love seeing some tusk get through the bans and politically correct gestapo agents. Score!

[doglegg]

Tusk, tusk Jacknifeben, lovely knife.

[Jacknifeben]

Thanks for all of the educated comments. Think this is my only ivory knife. WOW.

[kootenay joe]

I think it could be ivory celluloid. There were quite a few ivory celluloids and some are very hard to distinguish from actual ivory. The very fine perfectly parallel grain makes me think not from an elephant. But i am often wrong.
Is there a Cattaragus catalog that shows a Corn knife with ivory handles ? Ivory knife handles are less common in USA than in British and German knives.
kj

[OLDE CUTLER]

I remember seeing unfinished pins that were punched on the ends to expand the pin and the pin was then ground to the finish of the cover material. The pin was still expanded at that surface to secure the covers. The pattern left by the punch is still evident on the pins on the Corn Knife. My theory entirely.

Not yours entirely, mine too. I have also seen the pins that were crunched in a press to expand the ends.

[knife7knut]

I think it could be ivory celluloid. There were quite a few ivory celluloids and some are very hard to distinguish from actual ivory. The very fine perfectly parallel grain makes me think not from an elephant. But i am often wrong.
Is there a Cattaragus catalog that shows a Corn knife with ivory handles ? Ivory knife handles are less common in USA than in British and German knives.
kj

I don't think so Roland;I have pieces of scrap ivory that I got many years ago that exhibit just those characteristics.Unfortunately they do not photograph well;at least with my camera.

[kootenay joe]

At one time i had about 40 or so Corn knives. The really old ones have ivory handles. Most of the more recent ( after WW I ) have celluloid handles. Some of them i could not decide if real ivory or celluloid ivory.
Here is one of the few i still have, "LaCrosse" Newark, N.J. U.S.A." I set the camera to highest resolution so the parallel lines are much more visible in the pictures than in person.
Clearly this is celluloid. How closely does it resemble the O.P. Corn knife ?
kj

[kootenay joe]

I just took another look at O.P. knife. Although the parallel lines are similar to my celluloid example, the O.P. knife handles are convex in cross section whereas handles on my example have a flat surface. Based on this i change my opinion, O.P. knife has most likely has ivory handles.
It would still be interesting to see an old Cattaragus catalog that shows knives with ivory handles.
kj

[btrwtr]

Beautiful little corn knife with a great etch.

Handles look like celluloid to me. I don't remember ever seeing ivory on a Cattaraugus knife or razor though I've seen many with ivory celluloid. Not sure what is going on with the pins. I've seen unfinished knives with the press pattern in the pins before they are ground off but they have a distinct waffle type pattern. I've also seen examples that the owners have tried to flare the pins to tighten the blades by using a punch or similar pointed tool to hammer divots into the pins.

[ea42]

If you look at ivory from the end the "grain" will have a crosshatch pattern to it, it's very distinctive and is not present in celluloid.

Eric

[kootenay joe]

Eric, i think a loupe is needed to see the 'crosshatch' pattern, cannot see it without magnification. Are we speaking about the same 'crosshatch' ?
kj

[edge213]

Going by the pictures, I say celluloid.

[knife7knut]

Just for info here are some scrap pieces of ivory that I got many years ago.I keep them around in case I need to repair an ivory handle.I don't know if you can magnify the pics or not;they are fairly low res.

[btrwtr]

Crosshatch pattern isn't hard to see in this cut end view of tusk. The pattern is more prominent in the outer layers.