Vintage view: How to identify real elephant Ivory

Despite its silken, tactile beauty, elephant ivory is one of those subjects that elicits an instant reaction from most people.

A blink, a shudder, a twist of deep repellence — these feelings are well founded. Last year, and for the first time, a top London auction house, Chiswick, was prosecuted for the sale in genuine error of a piece of elephant tusk dating from the 1960s.