Antique Baby Beluga Whale Scrimshaw Tooth Ring WMS SZ 7

This tooth is a part of Mystic, Connecticut history. When I moved to Mystic from California 12 years ago, the two oceans couldn't be more different. The Pacific is bright blue with beautiful, rolling white capped waves while The Atlantic is much more dark and foreboding. The sea can be deadly here, but hugely productive for lobster, cod and of course many, many years ago, whale hunting for oil. Mystic was one of the largest ports for whaling ships. In fact, the last working whaling ship in all its glory, The Charles W. Morgan, sits in the Mystic River today. But I digress...Along the river on the Stonington side of The famous Bascule Bridge, a man had a junk shop filled with eclectic oddities. He called it "Marine Supply", but it was truly a treasure trove of antiques. That is where I found this fabulous ring. He took it out of a broken curio cabinet (held shut with a paperclip) and told me it was a baby Beluga whale tooth he estimated to be over 150 yrs old. He went on to tell me Belugas only get one set of "peg-like" flat teeth in their lifetime and by the size of this one, it belonged to a young calf. The carving or scrimshaw was something the whalers did many years prior when they were passing time when out to sea. He got the tooth from an estate sale from a well know family of whalers, turned exporters in Groton just over the bridge about 30 years prior. He had purchased other pieces of scrimshaw, whaling tools and spears which are in The Mystic Seaport Museum today.