Featured Total Ban On Ivory Sales In The UK Proposed.

Coral items are not on eBay's list of prohibited items & are sold quite openly, including, to my dismay, large carved pieces coming out of China that are new. Evidently they believe there is nothing to enforce in this regard. This is eBay US; I have no knowledge of the policies of eBay in other countries.

As with ivory, there are types of work, like the bacchante cameo example, that just aren't being done any longer & haven't been in many decades. Given the opportunity, I discourage the purchase of modern coral, but see no usefulness in restricting pieces that are 70 & more years old.

 

You can't graft it back onto another coral plant, and climate change is doing more to kill coral than harvesting is from what I've heard. Of course, the folks who would ban it are the same bunch who banned the sale here of fossil ivory - animals who were dead before humans even got to the area they were found.

 

Just so. The rising water temperature that leads to coral bleaching & the increasing acidity that is softening everything that is calcium carbonate-based are doing more damage than collecting ever could. Then you've got China pouring cement over little coral-ringed islands in order to make them large & strong enough to support facilities for fighter jets.

I can see a glimmer of an argument on the 'fossil' ivory. It hasn't been fossilized in the geological sense, with the organic ivory being replaced by mineral. It's still mammoth or walrus ivory. Mammoth can be distinguished from modern elephant, while don't think walrus that has been under the permafrost is any different from currently living walrus. Suppose the fear is that it would be too easy to fake, giving an incentive for the illicit taking of live animals. Not sure even native peoples are allowed to use it lawfully anymore, although not entirely sure on that point. With the far north getting warmer & warmer, a lot more is sure to be exposed.

 

As far as I know, natives can still work and sell fossil pieces. Non-fossil walrus too, since they're allowed to hunt them.

 

These are the guidelines on walrus ivory. What does not seem to be legal, but that seems to go on anyway, is for natives of the northwest to trade in unworked non-fossilized walrus ivory with natives of the southwest for use in their handicrafts.

 

My guess is the enforcement agencies have bigger fish to fry.

 

Since I think it should be legal, I'm not overly concerned.

 

Our Auction of African Ivory originally scheduled for Tues, Feb 27th has been Canceled.

Soulis Auctions

PO Box 17
529 W Lone Jack Lee's Summit Rd

They were only to be sold within the state.....cash & carry.....Mo.

Wonder why they shut it down ?