eBay "liquidated" my antique blade!

A. G. Maisey · 8th May 2026, 04:13 AM

Adam, in the case of your keris, it was probably inspected by PitneyBowes, the ivory component was identified and that was that. End of story.

However, once Customs gets involved the outcome can vary a lot, depending on country & the Customs officers concerned.

To ship ivory legally, most especially into the USA you can be faced with high expense for verification, state laws that ban everything that even looks like ivory, immense disregard for actual law, & more or less general arrogant & "I am the law" attitude. Then there is the inbuilt Catch 22.

I've looked at this import/export of ivory over a number of years --- like about 35 years --- and I have come to the opinion I will only sell ivory within Australia, & I do have quite a lot of very valuable ivory.

The USA position on ivory is so disastrous that an extremely well known researcher & international authority on the Javanese keris gave me his collection of ivory hilts because he was concerned that if he had given those hilts along with the rest of his collection, to the museum of his university, that eventually they would be destroyed.

When thinking about USA and ivory bans, or for that matter, bans on anything & the USA, it is perhaps a good idea to remember that products sourced from kangaroos are banned in at least California, I was advised by one of the leaders of this push to ban kangaroo leather & etc, that these bans were very necessary because the Australian Kangaroo was an endangered species.

This is the sort of people we are dealing with:- ignorance coupled with a total absence of logic & good top dressing of arrogance.

8th May 2026, 04:13 AM	#39
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 7,218	Adam, in the case of your keris, it was probably inspected by PitneyBowes, the ivory component was identified and that was that. End of story. However, once Customs gets involved the outcome can vary a lot, depending on country & the Customs officers concerned. To ship ivory legally, most especially into the USA you can be faced with high expense for verification, state laws that ban everything that even looks like ivory, immense disregard for actual law, & more or less general arrogant & "I am the law" attitude. Then there is the inbuilt Catch 22. I've looked at this import/export of ivory over a number of years --- like about 35 years --- and I have come to the opinion I will only sell ivory within Australia, & I do have quite a lot of very valuable ivory. The USA position on ivory is so disastrous that an extremely well known researcher & international authority on the Javanese keris gave me his collection of ivory hilts because he was concerned that if he had given those hilts along with the rest of his collection, to the museum of his university, that eventually they would be destroyed. When thinking about USA and ivory bans, or for that matter, bans on anything & the USA, it is perhaps a good idea to remember that products sourced from kangaroos are banned in at least California, I was advised by one of the leaders of this push to ban kangaroo leather & etc, that these bans were very necessary because the Australian Kangaroo was an endangered species. This is the sort of people we are dealing with:- ignorance coupled with a total absence of logic & good top dressing of arrogance.