Old White Piano Key wanted!

Hi All,

I really need to find an old white piano key so that I can cannibalise the white material on the top to repair a very nice antique cribbage board of unusual design that I have just got.

As this is a job for our business I am naturally prepared to pay for this and postage if anyone can help me out.

Possibly a small piece of very thin bone would also do but must be a nice whitish cream colour.

Regards, Martin

Apart from suggesting ivory substitute, I can't help but would be glad to see a photo of the cribbage board.

Sad to think how may pianos were smashed for fun in competitions!

It might be quite difficult to match - 'white' piano keys ain't all the same colour by any manner o' means. I remember once trying to do a refurb on an upright.

Another alternative might be dental filing material.. available in a whole range of shades and usually both in chem-set or light-set versions. If you have a friendly dentist locally you could take in the cribbage board to see if the shade you need is available.

Brother is piano tuner. He'd seriously disagree reckoning that there are far too many old wrecks out there that got overlooked.

"Only want a cheap piano for the kids to learn on!" is approximately equivalent to taking a blow torch to the blue touch paper at the business end of a Saturn 5.

Getting back to the OPs question there is very little chance of getting a good colour match between cribbage board and piano keys. The ageing / discolouration rate is very different. Maybe if he did it all from keys salvaged from one piano. I'll ask him what, if anything, he has later.

Clive

Can remember a Channel 4 program in the early 1990's about Trebuchets, where they interviewed a landowner who was slowly demolishing a copse by hurling old pianos at it with his own trebuchet.

It is a weird and wonderful world we live in.

Regards

Richard.

Hi Martin

Second hand antique and brick-a-brac shops often have boxes of unmatched old knives with various bone or bone like handles, maybe a couple of the right colour and texture could be found and thin slices cut from them to make the inlay. They should not cost a lot if the blade is worn or corroded you are only after the handle.

Regards
John

Edited By John McNamara on 14/12/2017 05:20:49

Hi John, Good idea! I had not thought of the old white handled dinner knives, I often see them at car boots, will now keep an eye out.

Many Thanks.

Martin

John beat me to it, I repaired a chess piece using the material from the handle of an old knife & it was a good match and no Elephants were harmed in this repair !

Dominoes?

Twenty years ago I helped rebuild and install a pipe organ in our church, the ivory disc in the end of one of the knobs for the stops was missing, the organ builder was able to match the colour, and grain of the ivory with the other stops, then engrave the name of the stop, and once fitted you would not know which were old, and which were new. The new insert is plastic, I don't know what type, but it is of similar consistency to ivory.

Ian S C

Not sure whether it's come into force yet but all ivory trading may be banned - at least in theory...

**LINK**

Depending how small the pieces are, I'd suggest either tagua nut vegetable ivory **LINK**

or artificial ivory/bone **LINK**

Plentiful supply and cheap enough.

HTH

Jon

"Only two major exemptions will be allowed - musical instruments and historic or artistic artefacts."

It would be appalling if all the old objects that contain ivory were destroyed in an another misguided attempt to impose today's morality on the past.

The next thing you know we will be destroying statues of Nero...

...but we're not talking about trading either a musical instrument or a historic artistic artefact here. The OP wants ivory to restore an antique item.

Jon

Martin, have you got a photo of the offending piece and size needed, i have a load of mammoth ivory that i use in my work ,including thin flat pieces which are of little use to me .It varies from almost white to dark yellow cream.

historic OR artistic.

Antiques count as historic (presumable defined as made before Ivory bans came in to force).

(I assume the law actually says 'historical' (i.e. old) and that the reporter was being lazy when they used 'historic' (i.e. associated with some major event in history).

Neil

.

**LINK**

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-sets-out-plans-for-ivory-ban

Source of actual information ^^^

MichaelG.

.

For convenient navigation, here is a link to the consultation page:

https://consult.defra.gov.uk/international/banning-uk-sales-of-ivory/

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 16/12/2017 13:04:38

Hi All,

Many thanks to George for sending me some piano key tops, just perfect for what was needed.

Added the three missing corner pieces and the one missing score board section and it now looks a lot better:

Drilling the holes was tricky as they were so near the edges, I started at 1.mm and carefully worked up to the final 2.7mm, one corner piece flew out and was ruined but not to much trouble. Made a couple of brass markers also.

Don't get me started on the ivory thing, it a real pet peeve of mine. I am 3 YEARS into a discussion with The Natural History Museum over whether or not a particular species of Sawfish Rostrum (nose) requires Cites or not.

Bought a superb one of these about 5 years ago at auction which was fine, put it on EBay and got a £600 bid at once from France which was then pulled by EBay with no option to discuss. I now have 4 or 5 of them waiting to find a solution.

Cheers, Martin