Ivory bans are spreading. The Hawaii State Legislature has proposed a ban on the sale of all ivory and rhinoceros horn in the state. The Humane Society says almost 90% of the ivory for sale in Hawaii is probably of illegal origin. Some lawmakers want to exempt antique jewelry, musical instruments and guns that have ivory parts, so the bill is being debated. On February 26, 2015, China also imposed an immediate one-year ban on ivory imports. The temporary ban gives the government a chance to decide what should be done to protect wild elephants. (See Kovels Komments of January 28, 2015, August 20, June 11 and 24, May 28 and April 23 and January 29, 2014; November 20, 2013; November 14, 2012; August 3, 2011; and February 11, 2009, for past information on ivory laws).
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These NEW ridiculous laws will NOT stop the poaching of these animals….just as it has not stopped them in the past. New Government laws will only drive the prices up higher & underground just like it does with anything Government tells us we cant have!! So what do people do with their 100 year old inherited items? If its illegal to sell or posse them what will do you do with them? Destroying them should be a crime in itself!!! To destroy a piece of history!!!! Society has learned its lesson from over killing species but make no doubt in your mind….PETA people have an agenda that doesn’t belong in the Antiques Business. They have been driving these new laws here in California which has gone even further in it so called “protection”. read the California ban. They have gone up & beyond fair treatment to animals by not wanting any animal part possession even if it was 100 yrs.’ ago . I do NOT condone animal abuse or cruelty….but I do like my steak! Its NOT the same thing moron!
I am all for ivory bans. There are lots of things that are illegal–old or not. Things that were legal generations ago are just as abhorrent now as they were then. Time doesn’t lessen anything and neither does social status. And as long as there is a market for legal ivory, then criminals will slaughter elephants and work to make the ivory they illegally cut off today seem like it’s antique. At the end of the day there is zero justification for essentially ambushing and murdering these noble animals.
When provenance is established for ivory artwork that establishes its age as older than a certain date, why is that not an established standard?
Where else in the history of artworks can an object be declared illegal to sell more than a century after it was made, when it was not illegal to buy or sell the object when it was first made for sale? Protecting protected or potentially protected animals, plants or the like, when science can establish the source date of the original material, should be the goal, so as to protect living animals and plants from being destroyed as a species. If science can’t do that, then there is much more work to be done. But artwork that is established to be older than a certain time, and then ‘grandfathered’ as to its value, is almost as noble a goal as protecting animals and plants.
I’m all for protecting wild elephants however there is a lot of antique Ivory out their or mammoth ivory that should be treated as art. This art needs to be preserved but the practice of killing elephants to continue this art needs to be stopped. I have a collection of antique Japanese netsukes that I would like to continue collecting and prefer not to go to jail because I choose to collect this beautiful art form.
These absolute bans fail to take into account people like me who have ivory items that have been in my family’s possession for over 60 years and others for close to 90 years.
In the first case are a small ivory bust gifted to my grandparents at some time between 1935 and 1950 by the giver who had been living in the Belgian Congo. The second case relates to a pair of hippopotamus tusks given to my father in 1926 by his mother’s cousin who had lived in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) between 1903-1918. It’s probable he shot the hippo himself (I have a photo of him sitting on a hippo with rifle in hand).
I don’t condone the taking of elephant or hippos ivory or any other animal parts (for instance, rhino tusks) but these items were taken at a time when the animals in question were publicly hunted and no one ever thought they could become endangered. There wasn’t the huge financial incentive that has driven the escalating number of massive kills of the past 40 or so years.