Antique Scrimshaw

Antique scrimshaw pieces make up what is on of the busiest categories on Mega Ministore. Our listings are comprised of both bone and tooth scrimshaw; some are pure art pieces and some are practical (for example, our knives with scrimshaw handles). Antique scrimshaw as well as modern works by Native Americans are listed here.

As an antique, scrimshaw only goes back to the early 1800s, when whalers would use any carving implement they could find on ship and carve scenes of varying cleverness into pieces of bone, tooth or tusk. The carved lines would then be enhanced with coloring, sometimes candle ash, tobacco juice, or a commercial pigment.

The scrimshaw industry these days is informed almost entirely by various national and international laws relating to hunting and whaling. In the early days, antique scrimshaw was made from the teeth and bones of sperm whales, which were abundant and hunted en masse. Ivory from African elephants has also been widely used for scrimshaw art.

Antique scrimshaw is legal to buy and sell, and is defined as any piece crafted from ivory-bearing creatures (i.e., walrus and sperm whales) before 1973. (An exception is elephant ivory, which has a legal limit of 1988 or before). Furthermore, legal restrictions are lifted for modern (non-antique) scrimshaw crafted by native Alaskan Eskimo artisans. This last category contains some big names and often accounts for some of the higher-priced items in our listings.

The durability of real antique scrimshaw is, due to the porous nature of teeth and especially bone, an eternal problem for collectors. Dryness can rob a collection of a beautiful piece, and many serious collectors learn to introduce oil into the object and wait for it to seep into the pores. An unobtrusive wax coating added afterwards can greatly increase the life span of a piece of antique scrimshaw.

Although carved scrimshaw is more popular for collectors, there is also a type of scrimshaw created by sculpture. Some pieces combine a sculpted shape with carvings, and recently artists have even been experimenting with multiple colors rather than the traditional dark or black coloring.

Scrimshaw art is popular because it is so related to the sea - or, more to the point, to man's interaction with the sea. Whaling was a monumentally difficult and dangerous pursuit, and a piece of bone or ivory was a hard-won possession for a proud hunter. Commercial whaling may be outlawed now, but the process of carving an intricate, beautiful scene directly on the surface of something that so strongly represents the great ocean is such a basic outpouring of human creativity that the lure of antique scrimshaw and modern scrimshaw art will remain particularly strong for many years.

Scrimshaw for sale

We search the web for vendors who sell scrimshaw, select the most relevant ones and sort them into specific categories so you can see a larger selection of offers.

Articles (nautical antiques)

Mystery or misery on the high seas? Crew eschews GPS to sail by sextant

In 1854, a wooden ship called Mystery completed a successful voyage from England to Australia. And in 2008, a crew pulled up the anchor on that vessel's spiritual descendant, Spirit of Mystery, to make the same voyage with the same technology. Namely, Captain Pete Goss and his three-man crew (son, brother, brother-in-law) are using the sextant and the stars...

eBay emerges as an unexpected hotbed of high-priced antique diving helmet sales

Although eBay would seem to be a less efficient place to buy something as bulky and obscure as an antique diving helmet, in fact there are some exquisite, unique examples changing hands for large amounts. Looking at recently completed auctions in the Antique Diving Helmets category, a surprising seven helmets sold for over $1000 (ranging from $2,280 for a...

New 11-part series about exploring shipwrecks to air on Discovery Channel

The Discovery Channel, long known for its interesting but artificially melodramatic series about the natural world and history, has recently announced that it will be producing eleven episodes of a series that follows a company searching and collecting treasure from shipwrecks around the world. The exploration company is Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc., which...

Historic Civil War shipwreck faces uneasy future in its Marine Sanctuary home

The Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, sixteen miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, NC, is home to America's first such designated shipwreck: the USS Monitor, an iron ship that went down during the Civil War. The designation was given in 1975. Although the ship is still in reasonable shape, with several sections of it having been removed and put on display...

Stash of first-ever US gold coins (worth $100K each) found in Gulf of Mexico shipwreck

Divers exploring wrecks in shallow water in the Gulf of Mexico have located the remains of a 19th-century paddle wheeler that had, among other exciting treasures, a bunch of coins that are the first gold coins ever minted in the United States. The coins were minted in New Orleans; in Charlotte, NC; and in Dahlonega, Ga. The Civil War stopped the minting for a...

Scrimshaw