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Originally Posted by ASH
Not sure on the knife's origin, but the hilts material I would say looks just like sperm whale tooth ivory. I collect mainly Polynesian art and see a fair amount of this material. Just my two cents
Great knife.
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This make much more sense to me. The larger back teeth of the sperm whale especially would provide both the length and mass necessary to carve a reasonably sized hilt. Here is a large scrimshaw tooth as well as a nice keris hilt purported to have been made from a sperm whale tooth. I suspect that this is the material most often used where claims of dugong have been made.