eBay coming up for auction set of ivories.

[ADR147]

if this set really is all ivory it must be the best set i have ever seen - guesses on the final price anybody?

http://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/au...earchitem=true

[andy carson]

that join on one of the balls looks a bit suspect.

3rd pic bottom left ball

[ADR147]

hard to tell from a photo but i rang them they say they are all ivory.

[mythman69]

if this set really is all ivory it must be the best set i have ever seen - guesses on the final price anybody?

http://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/au...earchitem=true

Hmmmm, 3-4k maybe?

What is your guess?

I like the look of the club chalk.

[ADR147]

Hmmmm, 3-4k maybe?

What is your guess?

I like the look of the club chalk.

£2.5k plus i would guess

[Neil Taperell]

Why are these so valuable ?

Assume a collectors item ......but is there some history to them ?

[gazza147]

I like all the Items with them! I sold full set ivories last year £1250 and i thought that was Great Money!!!.........My Guess is around £2000-£2200 Max!

[mythman69]

Why are these so valuable ?

Assume a collectors item ......but is there some history to them ?

Ivory balls sell for about 100GBP each on ebay. So full set worth a bit of money.

I was told that bagpipe players buy them to fix their bagpipes. Not sure if they would be interested in coloured ivories.

[ADR147]

chinese love them.

[perpetualboredom]

Have you had any experience of posting abroad Andrew? How do you go about getting cities certification?

[mythman69]

Have you had any experience of posting abroad Andrew? How do you go about getting cities certification?

I am not sure if you need cities certification as long as you can show that the ivory is over approximately 50 years old (I think) and has been turned rather than just a tusk. Still best to check. I have received antique cues with ivory name plates and had no issues so far.

[ADR147]

Have you had any experience of posting abroad Andrew? How do you go about getting cities certification?

so far when sending them to china nobody has ever asked......

[trevs1]

Nothing much at all gets asked for stuff going INTO China.

Different story altogether for anything coming into (or going out from) the EU, UK and USA though. They are far more stringent.

A cue is a cue to most anyway, and if the words "ivory" are not mentioned on the details for a consignment, they'd not assume there was any used to produce the product contained within a package.

My guess would be for balls like these, and with the original box with makers name (which to some extent denotes their age), there would be less of an issue, if one at all.

[perpetualboredom]

I don't think that's the case - it's not as if any traders in illegal ivory would have thought to put modern materials in an old box... I'm pretty sure any judgement about the age of an item have to come from someone qualified/certified to make that judgement too.. things can easily be artificially aged.
Put it this way - if someone did pay a couple of grand for these and want them shipping overseas I wouldn't send it without making 100% sure, customs do not return things that are imported illegally.

[trevs1]

You don't think which bit is the case.?... I'm not following.

Yeh sure, faking the age of a product is not impossible.....But...

How likely is it that something like that ends up in an auction house in Yorkshire, being sold as "ivory snooker balls" with a load of other old stuff which is linked to the same rather specialised field as Snooker.? And furthermore, I would argue that the use of such a quantity of ivory could potentaily fetch far greater sums of money if it was used for other products.

The simple fact is that customs officials are not able to go through every single product which might have a part made from ivory, and even if they did, many of them would not notice /or have the knowledge to know it was ivory. The sender of a set of snooker balls could just state "snooker ball set" on any documentation and that would likely be sufficient to get it clean through customs.

It may be a completely different situation of it stated ivory carving. I'm sure they'd be all over that.

As for Cities certification, my guess would be that if there was any doubt, it gets confiscated and most likely destroyed if proof is not forthcoming as to what it is, where it came from and when.