Ivory Balls are fetching an all time high in Price and much sought after on ebay

[Geoff Large]

A few years ago Ivory balls used to sell for around £25 a ball .
Well just recently the price has suddenly shot through the roof with single 2 inch balls on ebay selling in excess of £130 a ball

I have had hundreds maybe close on couple of thousand of these balls over the 40 years I have been in the trade pass through my hands when we where bringing tables in to the warehouse in the 1970's , and recently sold one for just £75 on my web site and a boxed set of billiard balls last month for just £150

Now it looks like there is a demand for them , so folks , any one sat on some genuine Ivory balls then mow is the time to cash in , a set of 22 is going to sell for around £2200 to £3000 if in a case .
A billiards set for £300 upwards .
But you cannot advertise Ivory on ebay , you have to put the word Faux Ivory , people who are in the know can see if a ball is ivory by the cross hatch graining like this .

http://gclbilliards.com/old-victoria...ball-for-sale/

If selling any ivory product even billiard and snooker balls there are laws that govern the sales of ivory items , and this also applies to import and export with tougher laws , but generally any pre 1947 ivory in its original worked state can be purchased and sold within the UK
And as far as I am aware all ivory balls where fazed out and replaced with modern product around 1930s , although some major Billiard firms did still offer a trueing up service of ivory balls right upto the 1950s .

[philip in china]

As an owner of 2 snooker tables and 2 pianos I must be in the sights of the ivory police!

[100-uper]

I wonder if anyone knows why ivory billiard balls are becoming so popular? I'm reasonably confident that it has nothing to do with an interest in billiards.

Some years ago I was told that bagpipe makers were buying balls in order to make the fittings to join the pipes together, which may or may not have been true. At that time the price was about £35 per full-sized ball (any shape or condition). Perhaps there has been a sudden increase in the popularity of bagpipes, but I doubt it.

Perhaps the Chinese have discovered that snorting powdered ivory gives powers to strange places – or perhaps they just use it to "cut" a measure of rhino horn. If anyone knows the answer, I'd be fascinated to know.

With regard to ivory balls available on eBay, you can be confident that they all predate the CITES legal date (1947). Ivory went out of fashion almost immediately after the professional and amateur championships switched to Crystalate balls in the late 1920s (In much the same way that Chinese billiard tables have become popular after WPBSA started using them). There were still a few companies turning ivory balls in the late 1930s, but the start of the war ended the import of ivory to the UK and put them out of business pretty quickly.

[Geoff Large]

Hi Peter

Yes I did sell a few to Bagpipe renovators over the years , but it is now also illegal to reform it into other items under Cites law , and you can be fined if you have not got the license that enables you to use it for renovation purpose say in the antique trade .
That is why I always state in my sales of ivory balls for billiards collectables .
I would like to think they are all billiard collectors who buy these balls , but I doubt it , the ball I was looking at on ebay has now 14 mins to go and it is at £151 !, and he has 4 more sales on there also creeping up in price .

that works out at £3322 for a set of 22 balls . i wish i had collected all those balls and saved them for the price they are getting now , at 2000 balls = £302.000

[Stupree]

Ivory Balls are fetching an all time high in Price and much sought after on ebay

What is your thoughts on this item then?

The seller is familiar to many of us and I would expect him to have been fairly diligent in sourcing the material with Tony but does this break ebay's rules on ivory sales?


http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/321390891809?nav=SEARCH

[Geoff Large]

No because it is advertised as Faux Ivory but if part of a cue is ivory then they do turn a blind eye


as long as you are not selling it as actual ivory you are not breaking ebay rules , others sell it as oxbone .

unless you mean Tony , it is a grey area to re-use genuine ivory , but if you have gone down the Cites route and adhere to all they say about reworking ivory then he is not breaking the law .

[100-uper]

What is your thoughts on this item then?

The seller is familiar to many of us and I would expect him to have been fairly diligent in sourcing the material with Tony but does this break ebay's rules on ivory sales?


http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/321390891809?nav=SEARCH

As I understand the CITES legislation (and I'm sure they make most of this up as they go along) what they call "antique" ivory—typically a pre-1947 billiard ball—cannot be reworked and sold as something else without an "Article 10 certificate" details of which can be found on the DEFRA website, along with an admirable cure for insomnia. I can't say that I ever got to the end of the list of conditions required to issue such a certificate, but it could well be that the cues in your link qualify for exemption.

[Geoff Large]

Tony uses old table broken badges , so in theory they still remain a badge , the main item on ebay is the Cue , not the ivory badge , there are many exempt things on ebay , but if an item has a small amount of ivory , say a small jewelry box with ivory inlay or a drawer knob , then they will not act on that .
the same applies to a cue with a small ivory badge on the butt or maybe a ivory ferrule or joint .
I used to play the guitar some years ago , and I used the old ivory cue and table badges to make plectrums , they gave a brighter twang to the string than plastic ones .
A bit like Brian May of Queen who uses an old sixpence as a plectrum .

[100-uper]

I think I'd be more worried as an owner rather than a manufacturer, especially if I was taking it across national borders. All it would need is an eagle-eyed custom official to spot what looks like a new piece of ivory on a newly made cue and the onus of proof would be on the carrier to prove it was not what it seemed. Not good if you were on your way to take part in an IBSF championship.

[kheops]

discovered that snorting powdered ivory gives powers to strange places

i think you're just right with this idea, there are so much things in this world going absolutely nonsense because of what we have between legs, and what some think about it

[ADR147]

ivory balls basically stopped being used in 1924 - i read somewhere that peradon dumped hundreds of them into the river because they were useless, now they all go to china where despite the laws they are re-worked.

[100-uper]

I think you will find that ivory balls were available and used by billiard players long after 1924. I have a Peradon catalogue from 1956 which advertises a service (to the trade) for adjusting and staining ivory balls, so there was clearly a demand even after the war. However, I can't find anyone advertising new ivory balls for sale after 1939. Peradon themselves seem to have discontinued supplying these balls after about 1930. My references for the later dates are Burroughes & Watts (1938) and Macmorran (1939).

I seem to recall that the story about the balls being dumped (it was a canal in the version I heard) originated from Norman Clare, so I assumed it rated to some stock of his. If true, it must have been well after the war when all the ancillary ivory trades had ceased to exist. I'm sure that Norman would have been canny enough to turn a profit on a stock of ivory if such an option had been available to him. Not sure where I read the article. Probably Snooker Scene which is not entirely reliable when it comes to factual accuracy. Maybe someone else can pinpoint the story.

[ADR147]

I think you will find that ivory balls were available and used by billiard players long after 1924. I have a Peradon catalogue from 1956 which advertises a service (to the trade) for adjusting and staining ivory balls, so there was clearly a demand even after the war. However, I can't find anyone advertising new ivory balls for sale after 1939. Peradon themselves seem to have discontinued supplying these balls after about 1930. My references for the later dates are Burroughes & Watts (1938) and Macmorran (1939).

I seem to recall that the story about the balls being dumped (it was a canal in the version I heard) originated from Norman Clare, so I assumed it rated to some stock of his. If true, it must have been well after the war when all the ancillary ivory trades had ceased to exist. I'm sure that Norman would have been canny enough to turn a profit on a stock of ivory if such an option had been available to him. Not sure where I read the article. Probably Snooker Scene which is not entirely reliable when it comes to factual accuracy. Maybe someone else can pinpoint the story.

my logic for 1924 was the introduction of the replacements - also highest break with ivory balls was 1370 tom newman in 24 - but yes i am sure they were still available afterwards. can't remember where i read the story either but apparently it was thousands of balls.

[Geoff Large]

when I first started in the business of Snooker and Billiards for my Uncles firm in the 1970's we had a YTS lad who was instructed to clear the warehouse up , that threw an entire large egg box of around 300 ivory balls into the river lean next door to the workshop , he was quickly thrown in to retrieve them . when we returned off a job , and in those days they were only giving £5 a ball , and wages where around £50 to £70 per week .
He did not get all of them out as the mud was around 12 inch thick under two foot of water .
And I think I have told this story in the past on TSF , are you thinking of this story ?

[ADR147]

when I first started in the business of Snooker and Billiards for my Uncles firm in the 1970's we had a YTS lad who was instructed to clear the warehouse up , that threw an entire large egg box of around 300 ivory balls into the river lean next door to the workshop , he was quickly thrown in to retrieve them . when we returned off a job , and in those days they were only giving £5 a ball , and wages where around £50 to £70 per week .
He did not get all of them out as the mud was around 12 inch thick under two foot of water .
And I think I have told this story in the past on TSF , are you thinking of this story ?

nope but if he was working for me he would have got them all back!