All About Pocket Knives

while researching a sheffield cutler i ran across this..
in 1878 joseph rogers and sons used 26 tons of ivory comprising of 2561 tusks averaging 22 lbs each.
in 1911 they had about 15 tons in storage worth about 22,000. english pounds.

Man, that equals a heck of a lot of dead elephants. Interesting and thanks.
Phil

Hi johnnie. Very interesting post. I think I might have a photo in a book of the Rodgers' ivory store from the early 1900s. Will check when I get home. Let me know if I can be of any help with your Sheffield cutler. I have a few sources. s-k

Here is a photo of the aforementioned Rodger's ivory store room from the early 1900s. The source is Geoffrey Tweedales (1996) Sheffield Knife Book. The second is a lytho copied from The Penny Magazine Supplement entitiled A Day at the Sheffiled Cutlery Works dated 1844.

OOPS have them the wrong way around.

s-k

great pics s-k. these figures were for one year only. hard to imagine how many elephants were harvested for ivory. lots of knives and piano keys, eh?

i found what i needed but i'll call on you for sheffield info for sure.

Elephant ivory was also used fo billiard balls, I think. There was a competion way back when to find the perfect substitute for tusks.

Strange.... Ivory is now mined from underground, lots of old mastadons and mammoths buried in the far north, I understand particularly in Russian.

Phil

Damn, wish I could have hunted one of these bad boys....

Cool thread.....

Some great pictures...

Here is a little Mastodon...heavy on the Earth's minerals.....

Bill

great pics and nice knife bill. i like the coloring. leached into the ivory from surrounding minerals - mother nature. hey 9-ball how about those ivory billiard balls? they were used on many musical instruments as tuning knobs, bridges, etc., as well.

Threads like this make it fun around here...Thanks...

jonet143 wrote:while researching a sheffield cutler i ran across this..
in 1878 joseph rogers and sons used 26 tons of ivory comprising of 2561 tusks averaging 22 lbs each.
in 1911 they had about 15 tons in storage worth about 22,000. english pounds.

I had an extensive collection of books on African hunting at one time,mostly written before 1930.
Apparently the Rogers inventory came primarily from the Nigeria,since the average weights were so low.These elephants from the swamps were usually smaller than those from Kenya,Tanganyika,Rhodesia,and Ethiopia.
Most of the professional ivory hunters shot only bulls and the larger cows.Their trip reports usually averaged above 40 lbs per tusk.
As I recall,the largest tusks on records were in the area of 220 lbs.That's one tusk.
It's remarkable that some of the best professionals used small calibers that utilized a long,relatively heavy,solid bullet that penetrated well.They utilized the brain shot primarily,as they didn't like chasing a wounded one for 5 or 10 miles.
Rhino horn was very valuable,as the orientals believed that tea made from it,was an aphrodasiac.An early version of Viagra,I guess.
Ron

hey ron, good stuff. one of the benefits of knife collecting is learning other facets of knife history, not just steel. knives have played an important cog in our wheel and a lot of other things are affectedby the use of.