The Rohner Hammer, finished

I thought I had explained about the history of this piece but maybe I didn't.  John Rohner is one of the most well-respected men in the world of hand engraving.  For several decades, he has been asking engravers to put their work onto hammer heads for his collection.  It is a tremendous honor to be asked to contribute to the hammer collection.  I'm not sure there are any other ivory hammers in the collection, I think this may be the first one.  He left the design up to me, but asked that I somehow include a grizzly bear.  He was given the name of "Golden Grizzly Bear" by a Sioux medicine man some years ago.

If you don't know what scrimshaw is, it's a type of hand-engraving.  These images are not painted onto the surface, but instead they are engraved into it.  This is done entirely with microscopic dots engraved into the ivory.  Ink fills the dots to give the image its color.  It's an incredibly time-consuming process.  This entire piece is two inches long, and one inch in diameter.  It is made of pre-ban elephant ivory, and is a replica of an engraving hammer (obviously one would not normally hammer anything with something made of ivory!)