Scrimshaw? pendant necklace

I was driving home from the store and one of these Gypsy sales was on the side of the road. Elderly couple with a beat up truck. I stopped and looked through piles of tangled together items she said was her moms. this she wanted $20 but i got her down to 10. The story I was told her Mom bought it in Hawaii in 1960 something.
The bone pendant is 2 1/4" long with I think Sterling surrounding the scrimshaw. I think the beads are shells of course, but the other things I'm not so sure. MOP?

Mikey

 

The "bone" is some type of antler.

 

My thoughts exactly. Thanks Holly.

 

Scrimshaw Antler

 

Ok scrimshaw antler slice

 

Not sure what the shells are, think they were meant to look like Puka shells. Which they are not.
The other does look like MOP.

 

The disc-like shells are called heishi beads, and they are made of clam shells.
There is a long tradition of scrimshanding in Maui, because there were whaling ports there in the 19th century.
So the Hawaii origin story could be accurate.

 

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Thank you staci. I'm being told the red beads are coral but I'm not sure.
Mikey. @Any Jewelry your thoughts would be appreciated.

 

Mikey, they look like red glass tile beads to me. Maybe you could post a close up, just to be sure?

 

The main pendant is antler, as others have said. But it looks like the scrimshaw part is a different material inset into the antler. It is not clear what that material might be.

 

That's what I thought. It looks like bone, but some ivory can have those lines as well. In which case they are natural cracks rather than tiny blood vessels.

 

Here is close up of beads and the catch i forgot to show before

 

I thought it was all one piece. some of the cracks show on both sides of the silver?
Mikey

 

The metal beads and clasp are not sterling. The steely color of the beads is all wrong for sterling. This type of clasp is seen a lot in Native American jewelry. The stringing material is tiger tail, a twisted metal wire covered with plastic. And finished with a modern crimp bead. The clasp of any piece holds many clues!
I think those red beads are indeed red coral. Common in Native pieces, not common in Hawaiian jewelry.
I'm starting to think this piece is Native American, made in the 70s-80s by a craftsman and incorporating a piece of scrimshaw. The heishi beads are a Native design element, too.
The scrimshaw could be from Hawaii, as the story goes, or its an amateurish try by the necklace maker.

 

I didn't think anything was silver except for the frame around the scrimshaw. Thanks for the identification of the wire and beads.

 

It's interesting and totally worth the $10 bucks. It looks vintage 70s-early 80s to me, based on the condition of the bone.

 

So her 1960's story could be late 60's then.

 

I think so! It has a kind of hippie vibe.
I'm not sure when they started making tiger tail though. Earlier native pieces would be strung on fine waxed cord.

 

Can't recall seeing anything quite like the pendant, with a scrimshaw set into the staghorn slice and silver-mounted (believe the inset may be a lighter, even toned piece of antler) - personally, without some firmly attributed or signed pieces of similar form, wouldn't want to call it NA at all, especially since I can remember buying or seeing all of the other materials in bead shops here in Florida in the mid '70s (feel sure they were available all over the country...)

~Cheryl