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When the Vancouver Maritime Museum opened its holdings of erotic carved whale teeth to public eyes this month, it not only assailed the sensibilities of its more prudish visitors, but exposed a collection that a former museum director had prayed would never again see the light of day.

Not because they are naughty — but because they are fake.

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“These are not 19th-century pieces of scrimshaw,” said James Delgado, director of maritime heritage for the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and a former executive director of the Vancouver Maritime Museum.

The pieces in question are part of the museum’s new exhibition, Tattoo and Scrimshaw: The Art of the Sailor, which opened in March and runs to mid-October.

Off to the side, in an elevated case to keep them away from children, are nine pieces of erotic “scrimshaw”; carvings into harvested whale ivory that were typically fashioned by whalers. Steamy scenes play out alongside the caption “A whaler’s hope of the first night ashore.” Another tooth portrays a particularly graphic episode in the boudoir beneath the quote “thar she blows!”