Man wearing elk ivory ring while holding rifle

Elk Ivory Jewelry by Park City Jewelers

Posted on Apr 23, 2021 By Zachary Rawlings

When you hear the word ivory, you likely think of elephants, warthogs, or other animals living on another side of the world or found in your local zoo. In North America, elk have two teeth that are made of ivory. These ivories have been prized for thousands of years across many cultures and are often made into jewelry to commemorate a successful hunt's skill, savvy, and hard work.

Open elk mouth showing location of elk ivories

Elk Ivory Background

Elk Ivories, also known as “Eye Teeth” “Whistlers” “Buglers” or simply “Ivories” are located in the upper jaw near the front where the canines should be. Both bulls and cows have ivory teeth, and scientits believe they are remnants of tusks from elk's ancient ancestors.

Besides walrus, elk are the only North American animal with actual ivory. Like other elk teeth, the ivory teeth are prone to getting stained or worn down as the elk gets older.

Elk Ivory Development and Lifespan

Elk are born with their ivories, and they grow and change throughout their life. In the first 3 years, the ivories are not fully developed, are a smaller size, and are hollow on the inside. Because they’re hollow, they can be more difficult to remove without damaging them.

These ivories are still valuable, attractive, and are used in jewelry. We fill the hollow ivories with epoxy to increase their durability.

Array of elk ivory teeth showing differences in color

Ivories reach the height of their development between 3 and 7 years. During this time, they become their largest size and solid all the way through. This age range is ideal for extracting the largest, most attractive, and most valuable ivories.

After 7 years, the ivories start to get worn down due to grinding, are more likely to be stained, and therefore start to lose their size and value.

Commemorate Your Hunt

Most hunters interested in elk ivory jewelry are looking to commemorate a hunt. Maybe it’s their first elk, their first big bull, their first hunt with a father, son, daughter, wife, or countless other reasons. The jewelry becomes a great conversation piece that gives you a reason to tell the story of your hunt again and again.

We love the stories our clients share with us about their elk ivories. We recently made two custom elk ivory rings for a client. Each ring had two ivories, one from the father’s bull and one from the son’s bull. The client gave the ring to his father for Christmas as a sentimental gift, and both rings turned out amazing!

What Makes Our Jewelry Different

Park City Jewelers is the best place to have your elk ivory jewelry made for many reasons. The biggest reason is that we preserve the maximum size of the ivory in each piece we create. We accomplish this by making the jewelry to fit the ivory.

Most other jewelers will shape the ivory to fit the jewelry they already have. This often results in the ivory being significantly trimmed down to a smaller size. When looking online at elk ivory jewelry from other jewelers, you can see that most of the ivories look the same size, and the “eye” of the ivory often isn’t centered correctly in the piece.

Our jewelry designs are custom-made using hand-carved wax molds. This is a time-intensive process and results in an extremely high-quality finished piece. Also, all of our jewelry is backed by our free lifetime warranty on workmanship.

Elk Ivory Jewelry

Elk ivory looks great on men and women and makes stunning rings, necklaces, bracelets, cufflinks, earrings, crosses, etc. We have an incredible collection of elk ivory jewelry. Each piece can be custom-made with your ivories, or we have a wide selection of ivories you can choose from.

The best part about using your ivories? The discount! We offer $100 off for each ivory you provide (up to two per piece). Use the discount codes below according to the number of ivories you’re sending us.

Park City Jewelers is the absolute best choice for elk ivory jewelry.

Shop Our Collection of Elk Ivory Jewelry

Discount Codes:
ELK 100: 1 Ivory
ELK 200: 2 Ivories