Featured Finally got what I am pretty sure is celluliod. Yay!

The celluloid items posted, all have a high sheen, missing from the OP's

Agreed.

This type of jewelry was sold through all kinds of gift stores in the 60s-70s. I remember seeing it in a lot of souvenir shops. Some of it was bone, but most of it was ivory. I don't remember ever seeing it listed as celluloid or ivory.
I'm getting older and my memory is not necessarily what it used to be.

 

Yes, amazingly enough!. You wouldn't think it would be worth their while but it's out there.

 

Hmm.
I had heard that was supposed to be good jewelry glue.
I bought some at a bead show once. It didn't seem to work well so I never bought it again.
Maybe I bought FAKE Glue. Amazing.
Will have to try it again.

Thanks for the info @KSW

 

The rose is an 1 1/2" on the short side.

 

That looks a heckuva lot more like ivory than anything else, I'm sorry to say. Tons of those ivory roses were made in the 60s and mounted to costume findings.

 

Thank you!

 

Yes please share.

 

Maybe they were trying to pass off celluloid as ivory. Isn't that why they made celluloid initially? Maybe they were trying to sell fakes?​

 

I’m no expert but it was highly recommended by the ladies on the FB restore vintage jewellery page. I’ve only used it for Rhinestones etc but it hasn’t let me down yet. Maybe it’s not suitable for some applications?
Fake pictures below.

 

Celluloid was a solution to a supply and demand problem. Companies didn't have enough ivory to meet market demands and wanted a substitute -- not to intentionally deceive, just to sell more product!

I think most celluloid production ended before the 1960s. It was so dangerous to make (factories were always burning down and such) and new plastics were safer.

 

I've had few pieces of so called "French Ivory", which I believe is a type of celluloid, but the lines are both very distinct and very regular.

 

These days it's the other way around; there's no problem selling celluloid, but traffic in ivory of any sort is nothing but a headache..and that's if you have documentation. Celluloid came about because they needed something to use in place of ivory, in quantity. It turned out to cause real problems in some applications, so bakelite came along later.

 

Very flammable product.

I too was thinking that they had to have slowed or stopped production by the 60s.

Seems to me I remember reading something about celluloid toys in the 1930s igniting and children getting burned. Which halted celluloid toy production. Again old memory, so don't quote me on this.

 

It looked more carved and had parallel ivory lines. That one looks molded rather than carved to me.

 

This does not look like carved ivory at all, with that sheen and those bumps. It looks like molded and carved plastic, in this case celluloid:


It would have been molded, with some details carved, hence the term hand carved celluloid.

The back has those parallel faux ivory lines with one of the colours looking almost translucent (which it isn't). That 'translucent' look is never seen on real ivory, but is typical for faux. It is the same on my doll's hair set and on mos' handle, both celluloid.






In real ivory those lines look more 'solid', for lack of a better word, and no plastic sheen: