Featured Antique Turtle shell box , or horn.....or plastic... or what ?

I'm content that it's an antique.
I always thought it was turtle shell.
but....
I never looked that close at the entire box.
It all feels like natural material , and looks like it too , but as more information has come to light , I'm now uncertain of it's real composition.

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https://www.antiquers.com/threads/19thc-gold-tortoiseshell-bracelet.91318/page-2

start at post # 29........ to review new information gleaned off the web , that agrees and disputes , what I thought to be factual.

 

Have you looked at it under magnification? With tortoiseshell or horn, the darker color is distributed as tiny dots (cells) of pigment. In most imitations the color will appear as a uniform wash/smear.

It might be more than one material. The band forming the sides looks different than the top and bottom. Does it look the same in transmitted light?

And the bottom looks less like tortoiseshell than the top.

 

all valid points....
I'll pull out the spyglass..
the wrap looks like horn..... and the bottom...... WTF !!

 

Oooh yeah this does look like made from different parts. UV will react on both Tortoise and Horn in a similar way so that's not going to help much...

 

under magnification the top looks to have fine line striations while the base has a more all over pattern of very fine... squiggles .......

both seem like natural materials... but I'm no expert on all the plastics out there...

 

IMO the lid is not tortoiseshell. I have never seen a piece of tortoiseshell with patterns so deliberately parallel & evenly distributed, but posting a picture of the spots under magnification will help us more. You can place the loupe under the phone camera. But the edge on the second pic already has some artificial look-the spot being solid and no fading effect near the edge. Also if this is Chinese/ Japanese in origin, craftsmen there are very good at faking tortoiseshell.

 

This is made from painted hoof. It would be perfectly convincing if, without the smaller dots!

 

Another good example

 

Another (faux) tort mystery, with the same striations as komo's box. Maybe it helps, maybe it adds to the confusion.

One of my snuff bottles, the birds on either side are carved so they can move about under the yellowish "bridges":



Even striations on the sides:



No spots under a loupe, and there is shading of the pattern, although that looks more like a 'halo'.

A clue? Fibrous edges on the carved "bridges" over the movable bird, especially noticeable over the bird's neck:



Another possible clue, bits that dropped from inside the bottle as I was handling it. These are not snuff residue:



Looks like they melted. Was it carved using heat, maybe even laser carved? If so, why are the currently fibrous edges not smooth?

 

Modeled box but the panels are hand carved? Even plastic are hand carved, if labour is cheaper

 

Could be. The parts are all glued.

It fluoresces, but not as much as my (other) horn and tortoiseshell items.

True.

 

Yes my celluloid comb( or some sort of artificial material I don’t know about?) from Japan also fluoresces, but very pale. I have also seen another material fluoresces just like real tortoiseshell, but the dark spots are just pure, deadly dark spots, while the spots on real tortoiseshell displays unevenness & variation in colour under UV light.

Also as you mentioned, real tortoiseshell will not have those fibers at the edge. When you carve or sand it, it becomes powder.

 

If I remember correctly, my bottle also has those very dark spots under UV light.

 

I can highly recommend a book (!) by Maggie Campbell Pedersen: Gem and Ornamental Materials of Organic Origin. revised edition, 2010. ISBN 9780719804212
Available as a hardcover book -
https://www.bookfinder.com/search/?...il=en&classic=off&lang=en&st=sh&ac=qr&submit=

and as a less expensive PDF. (this turned up while doing a search, and I cannot personally vouch for it) -
https://www.magicianpalace.com/gem-and-ornamental-materials-of-organic-origin-p-1601.html

She provides an excellent discussion of the nature, use, and identification of tortoiseshell (among other materials). I will reproduce one page here, to show the type of information included, which addresses many of the questions we have raised here. She also has chapters on horn, as well amber & copal, jet, ivory, bone, antler, rhino horn, pearl, shell and coral.

 

fig 8.10 sure looks right for what I have.............

 

Wonderful, thank you.

This one is free:

https://masteruniversitariostore.wo...nd_ornamental_materials_of_organic_origin.pdf

 

That is an amazing book! Thank you @2manybooks and @Any Jewelry !

 

An interesting find today: can you spot where the land meets the sea - the horn meets the tortoiseshell?