Arrested for Ivory sale

iusedtoberich said:
Yeah, how would you go about selling a loaded 1999 BB? Where are you going to advertise it? You need a nationwide audience, maybe even worldwide.

Some fed will meet at the mall parking lot agreed upon meeting spot with cuffs waiting.

I’d bet dollars to donuts Jay wouldn’t touch that “today” with a 10 foot pole?
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You'd win that bet. I do have a couple of cues with white inlays that I will not be advertising for sale. I may show them somewhere to a few people I know or talk on the phone about them with someone I know, but I will never post any pics or describe a cue with white material online again. I got lucky two or three times, so I won't push my luck.

P.S. I've never been a cue dealer, just a small time collector with never more than 30 or 40 cues total. I have owned maybe seven or eight cues in my life that were full of Ivory, all gone now. Ginas, Tads and a couple of others. That's it. The ones I have now are small time by comparison. I'll just keep them until someone drops by and wants one. I won't be displaying them at any tournament, that's for sure!
 
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Right. So Jay and others know some high end dealers (Like the one who got busted in the opening post!) or players they can call on the phone that might be interested. These interested parties would have scooped up these cues 10 years ago, from a trusted source like Jay.

Today, I don't think it would happen. Because whoever scoops it up will know they will have a hard as hell time moving it in the future.

I don't even think a cue with an ivory ferrule and 8 small propeller inlays would move.

My opinion.
 
It’s interesting because I’ve seen a few ivory threads before on the forum. The conversations usually hit the same points. As a 42 year old man, I was 8 in 1989. By the time I took an interest in pool ivory was already phased out.

I can imagine for older folks there was a different stigma around it. The most skilled carmakers were using it. It’s an exotic material. Using it can give the cue a unique feel. It can be artfully applied to works of beauty. Some people may have grown up admiring such cues before they could afford them and by the time you could afford them the ban comes into play. And the ban was likely meaningless at one point when technology wasn’t available to aid enforcement. And some may have a cue they’d love to be able to part with one day and get a return for their original purchase.

But still for someone like me, I just have no interest in it. It’s clearly not worth the risks and hassles even when done properly. High level pool can be played without it. I came of age in an era where advanced machining, physics-informed performance-influencing designs and advanced synthetic materials are the flavor of the day. Really makes ivory seem not worth it in so many aspects.
 
iusedtoberich said:
Right. So Jay and others know some high end dealers (Like the one who got busted in the opening post!) or players they can call on the phone that might be interested. These interested parties would have scooped up these cues 10 years ago, from a trusted source like Jay.

Today, I don't think it would happen. Because whoever scoops it up will know they will have a hard as hell time moving it in the future.

I don't even think a cue with an ivory ferrule and 8 small propeller inlays would move.

My opinion.
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Yes it is your opinion.

IMO . Your wrong on several points,
 
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MattPoland said:
It’s interesting because I’ve seen a few ivory threads before on the forum. The conversations usually hit the same points. As a 42 year old man, I was 8 in 1989. By the time I took an interest in pool ivory was already phased out.

I can imagine for older folks there was a different stigma around it. The most skilled carmakers were using it. It’s an exotic material. Using it can give the cue a unique feel. It can be artfully applied to works of beauty. Some people may have grown up admiring such cues before they could afford them and by the time you could afford them the ban comes into play. And the ban was likely meaningless at one point when technology wasn’t available to aid enforcement. And some may have a cue they’d love to be able to part with one day and get a return for their original purchase.

But still for someone like me, I just have no interest in it. It’s clearly not worth the risks and hassles even when done properly. High level pool can be played without it. I came of age in an era where advanced machining, physics-informed performance-influencing designs and advanced synthetic materials are the flavor of the day. Really makes ivory seem not worth it in so many aspects.
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Cues with legal pre-ban ivory have been legal to build and sell within the US up until 2016. And to be more accurate, they’re still legal to sell. Cues with ivory have been very visible and prevalent for much of your pool playing life. In other words, ivory was not phased out unless you started playing pool just in the past few years. By the wording, old ivory can still be used in cues and sold across state line. The number the wording has for de minimus amount is a whopping 50% (value or volume) !

I believe this is the current status. Ken K. unfortunately lives in one of the four states in the US that prohibits the sale of ivory.

 
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Tadaimarlon said:
Aren't most Black Boar cues absolutely loaded with ivory? Are the laws different in maryland?
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Per the current laws:

Only 4 USA states ban the sale of ivory. New York and California are two of them. Maryland is not.

Pre-ban ivory can still be in cues and be sold for cues built prior to the further 2016 restriction of ivory use.

A cue for interstate sale has a bunch of little regulatory exceptions in addition to the type of ivory, the most major that the ivory cannot be 50% of the value or the volume of the cue.

At least that’s how I read the 2016 ivory restriction.
 
Cornerman said:
Per the current laws:

Only 4 USA states ban the sale of ivory. New York and California are two of them. Maryland is not.

Pre-ban ivory can still be in cues and be sold for cues built prior to the further 2016 restriction of ivory use.

A cue for interstate sale has a bunch of little regulatory exceptions in addition to the type of ivory, the most major that the ivory cannot be 50% of the value or the volume of the cue.

At least that’s how I read the 2016 ivory restriction.
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It's a HUGE headache.
A friend, who is an advocate for the State called me years Ago.
He said IVORY....
I can't help you if you use it.
End of story!
 
Cornerman said:
Per the current laws:

Only 4 USA states ban the sale of ivory. New York and California are two of them. Maryland is not.

Pre-ban ivory can still be in cues and be sold for cues built prior to the further 2016 restriction of ivory use.

A cue for interstate sale has a bunch of little regulatory exceptions in addition to the type of ivory, the most major that the ivory cannot be 50% of the value or the volume of the cue.

At least that’s how I read the 2016 ivory restriction.
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And there are people literally living in these states and voting for authoritarians at every level of government.

And they think I am just as stupid as I believe them to be.

Irreconcilable differences, time for a national divorce.
 
middleofnowhere said:
The use of code words demonstrates a "Consciousness of guilt". Not many defenses after that.
Most of the Jan 6th people who were arrested were tracked down by amateur sleuths. Animal activists are real fanatics, it is a lock they monitor a site like this.
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I hope there is someone equally fanatical keeping a journal of the identity of these hall monitor snitches in case it's ever needed.
 
Hmm-wonder if the only ivory in the cue is the ferrule, would they take the whole cue or just the shaft? Have a friend
that wants to know.
 
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Two of my cues have pre-ban ivory inlays and were purchased in 2005 and 2006. This thread makes me wonder if it is even possible to have them refinished without the risk of being confiscated in transit. Is it even possible to insure them against damage, theft, or other loss?
 
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In California I think the applicable law is AB 96 which came into effect in 2016. The interesting parts of the legislative analysis:

2) Prohibits a person from purchasing, selling, offering for sale, possessing with intent to sell, or importing with intent to sell, ivory or rhinoceros horn, with specified exceptions.​
​
3) Exempts from the above prohibition all of the following: ...​
​
c) Ivory or rhinoceros horn that is part of a musical​
instrument and is less than 20% by volume of the instrument,​
if the owner or seller provides historical documentation that​
the item was manufactured no later than 1975.​
​
d) Ivory or rhinoceros horn that is part of a bona fide​
antique and is less than 5 percent by volume of the antique,​
if the owner or seller provides historical documentation that​
the antique is not less than 100 years old.​

I'm not a lawyer, but I think this means as an individual I can continue to own whatever ivory (ferrules on cues) I already have as long as I don't plan to sell it.
 
Michael Webb said:
It's a HUGE headache.
A friend, who is an advocate for the State called me years Ago.
He said IVORY....
I can't help you if you use it.
End of story!
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No doubt. And like others implied, might as well not bother dealing with it (cue makers and cue sellers). The burden of proof per the restriction seems to be on the owner of the cue trying to sell it. The idea that some cue owner or dealer would have the provenance of the ivory seems too be a stretch for anyone, unless you're Thomas Wayne. I'm sure he has kept all the records necessary.
 
Cornerman said:
Cues with legal pre-ban ivory have been legal to build and sell within the US up until 2016. And to be more accurate, they’re still legal to sell. Cues with ivory have been very visible and prevalent for much of your pool playing life. In other words, ivory was not phased out unless you started playing pool just in the past few years. By the wording, old ivory can still be used in cues and sold across state line. The number the wording has for de minimus amount is a whopping 50% (value or volume) !

I believe this is the current status. Ken K. unfortunately lives in one of the four states in the US that prohibits the sale of ivory.

Click to expand...

I’ll rephrase that then. It’s not that it wasn’t around, it’s just that I had no prevalent firsthand exposure to it. I’m sure some players with very nice cues sported some and I was unaware. In my subjective experiences I would have needed to choose to actively seek it out.
 
Z-Nole said:
So if I play with an almost 20 year old cue that has a decent amount of ivory in it, does that mean I can never sell it?
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No……you can sell it but subject to conditions so learn your local state and federal laws governing ivory sales.
 
jay helfert said:
The Feds will take any cues they find with ivory in them, even if they are small inlays. If your cue has pre-ban ivory in it you will have to prove it to them to get it returned. And it better be iron clad proof!

I got lucky one time when shipping a Tad to a buyer in Japan. They opened the box at the post office and then called a postal inspector to look at the cue. I waited over an hour until he showed up. In the package I had included the original bill of sale from Tad to his customer dated 1984. He looked at the cue, looked at the letter and said okay to the post office supervisor, he can ship it. Without that letter I would have lost that cue.
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International shipments of ivory have been long regulated and prohibited with CITES certification before the July 1, 2016 widespread state adoptions of ivory bans.
 
jay helfert said:
You'd win that bet. I do have a couple of cues with white inlays that I will not be advertising for sale. I may show them somewhere to a few people I know or talk on the phone about them with someone I know, but I will never post any pics or describe a cue with white material online again. I got lucky two or three times, so I won't push my luck.

P.S. I've never been a cue dealer, just a small time collector with never more than 30 or 40 cues total. I have owned maybe seven or eight cues in my life that were full of Ivory, all gone now. Ginas, Tads and a couple of others. That's it. The ones I have now are small time by comparison. I'll just keep them until someone drops by and wants one. I won't be displaying them at any tournament, that's for sure!
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You attend a cue show in a state that does not regulate the sale of ivory in artifacts like Nevada or another state and
can buy and sell pool cues all day long that have ivory and bring them home. It is totally legal to do business.

You cannot transact business selling or buying any pool cue with ivory as long as you are within the geographical
boundaries of any state prohibiting ivory sales. But no one can ever confiscate your pool cues merely for possessing
cues that have ivory. That’s your personal property, or your heirs, forever more until you sell the cues. The ivory ban
was just like every law ever enacted in America…….de facto……so all my cues are protected and can be sold but I choose to retain them for my kids and grandkids. My cues will become precious heirlooms of a sort and will be cherished. That’s why I personally designed four of the cues. I wanted them to be special, one of a kind type pool cues.

Just do not transport your ivory cues across International boundaries……you can encounter a lot of grief if your do.
 
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