Ebay and ivory; ox bone and Schrager lines....
You are right, Bob. But the dirty little secret is that once people figured out to use the code phrase "ox bone balls," all the people who were afraid to sell their ivory balls on Ebay immediately listed them so that now there is an absolute explosion of ivory billiard balls on there. Just as a test, I reported an auction to ebay about a ball set being ivory and not ox bone. I was sent a "we'll handle this, don't email again about it" message. The auction remained. Ebay wants their profit, and they have obviously figured out that they will face zero consequences for allowing the sales labelled this way. The seller of this plastic set has an advantage due to this. If a person looks at the ivory color and the deep cracks, and they see the description of the numbers as scrimshawed which implies ivory, they assume the balls are ivory and that the seller would say ivory if they could. This seller therefore puts in a disclaimer that says "you decide" about the material. Other auctions that are actually ivory where the seller wants to make it clear that the material is indeed ivory are saying ox bone but describing "Schrager lines" that are characteristic patterns in ivory. Tricky. But these balls are junk made in a Soviet gulag...buyer beware.
