Featured Tortoise? an' Other Japanese Hair Ornaments & Tools

The top comb is ~91mm wide, ~42mm high, ~3mm thick. Although it appears to be tortoise, it is not UV-reactive. The metal looks like brass (or perhaps gold?) but the weight of the comb is too light for gold, so probably not; it's only 9.1 grams. An additional argument against tortoise is the absence of insect-bite damage, which the next two items have in a few places. There are 29 tines, an' they're hand-cut.
The plain amber-toned comb is remarkably similar to the one posted by @shamster previously. It's ~86mm wide, ~37mm high, tapering from ~6 1/2mm at the back to ~2 3/4mm at the tine end; its weight is ~14 grams. Its color an' translucency are uniform; UV light renders it creamy an' opaque, appearing somewhat like celluloid. It has 2 very small areas of bug-damage, hard to find except by feel.

The bar is ~16.5cm long, ~11mm wide, ~8mm thick; weight is ~19 grams. There are several areas of bug-damage, similar to that in pic 8. UV highlights anomalous contrasts in the darker portions.

The wooden hook-shaped spike seems to be more of a tool than an adornment to me; it's ~18cm long, ~27mm wide at the hook, ~1.6mm thick there as well; weight is only ~1 gram. It is hand carved of unknown, extremely fine-grained, hardwood.

As mentioned earlier, these all were returned to the US at the end of the GHQ Era, ~1952.
Please do share your thoughts an' suggestions, an' Thanks for looking'!

 

I know less than diddly about tortoise hair combs so I was intrigued to learn they fluoresce. As for the long, plain stick with a bent end, could it just be a plain hair stick? Looking forward to more answers.

 

Surely could be...I love it for its simplicity an craft. You may be right!

 

Agreed that the half-circle comb must not be tortoise if there's no (or wrong color) florescence. The blocky one, if a bluish-green, probably is. Definitely the long piece is the right florescence color. Bug chomps are a good sign too!

Tortoiseshell fluoresces a specific blue-green color quite vividly. This is some of mine (Which is mostly a darker brown color) with lights out:


Other stuff can fluoresce too of course. Bug bites (silverfish) on it is another indicator. Tool marks is a good one. If you can see unfinished areas, they look similar to horn. Horn is another material that can get confused for it.

 

Beautiful, whit.

Uhmm, "returned"?

Yes, it is worn like the hair sticks on this ukiyo-e print by Utamaro, "Two Beauties with Bamboo", 1795:



The girl on the left is wearing a half-circle comb, the same shape as whit's decorated comb. Whit's other comb is also hair jewellery.
The straight stick is worn with a comb on the centre of the head, so not on one side like the long hooked one. Comb and straight stick are usually a set.

 

I believe the two amber-toned pieces are real tortoiseshell! The patterned one not, it looks really convincing right! Also based on my personal experience those displaying darker tone tend to be real, as old tortoiseshell darkens.

the thick plain comb is just wonderful right? You will see how the layers within shine in different angles.

 

You're correct in calling out my use of that word, AJ.

Many of the art an' craft pieces Leonard & Annabelle brought to the US were bartered or purchased for very little goods or money. Japanese people were giving up treasures with deep family history or other major significance, to simply live.
I've heard how 5-cent Hershey chocolate bars, an' packages of Lucky Strike cigarettes were traded for all manner of services an' commodities...openly, as all Japanese people were more or less severely impoverished. It amounts to a form of looting which all conquered, subjugated peoples have been put to in one way or another for millennia. It's not right...but that's the truth.

 

Thanks to @mirana for showing the fluorescence. That was quite a surprise! And good to know my one guess about the objects was correct!

 

I think my phone "helpfully" color corrects so it's not as bright in person as uranium glass, but it is veryyy noticeable. One more reason to get a UV flashlight out at the hunt!

Oh also: Thickness is not an indicator, and molding doesn't mean it's not tortoiseshell. It was the original "plastic" in ancient times. It can be heated and thinner pieces laminated together to get much thicker pieces, and it can be pressed into molds.

 

Just want to say that I just discovered Japanese also use horse hoof (?) to make crazily good imitation blond tortoiseshell, stated in their museum site. And it looks identical to genuine tortoiseshell, which also reacts to UV light and can be eaten by bugs. If it has parallel lines under magnification, then it might not be tortoiseshell.

https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/583112

 

Very interesting! I wonder what color or intensity it looks like under UV? Thanks for sharing!

 

sadly they look same to my untrained eyes… also some of my combs display growth lines typical of tortoiseshell under UV so that can also be a sign of authenticity( might also depends on level of polishing). But it’s just astonishing how good these imitations are…as long as you don’t pay too much they are just as beautiful as tortoiseshell, I will still enjoy mine!

 

also some of them are not 100% fake but horse hoof with tortoise shell veneer… so can have the same surface observation

 

It gets more complicated by the minute.
Thank you for posting it, the use of horse hooves is new to me.

 

It’s unbelievable that horse hoof can look like this right? Guess the Japanese love the tortoiseshell so much that they tried everything to make faux tortoiseshell and finally find this…

 

The Japanese were always very good at using limited materials and designs and perfecting them to the extreme. This led to the absolutely perfect aesthetic of almost everything traditionally Japanese.

 

Horn has been used forever as a substitute as well and hooves are made of the same thing (keratin) so they used what they had good (cheap?) access to I suppose!

 

I wonder how cheap horse hoof could be at that time? Horses are always important military resources, or maybe these imitations are only popular in era that is relatively war-free

 

Horses were also used for travel, hobbies, and farming. Once horses were a certain age unfortunately they could be sent to slaughter where all parts were used.

 

horses are a might easier to get at than sea turtles..