Nuts 
Plastic
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The plastic used in YZ products is a phenol formaldehyde resin. This material, when mixed with a strengthening filler and compression moulded, is more commonly known as Bakelite. But to make the plastic component parts of the YZs the phenolic was cast as a liquid, without fillers, giving a clear semi-translucent material. The type of resin used was called Faturan. This was made in Hamburg, Germany, by Heinrich Traun and Sons between 1917 and 1947. Faturan has an odd characteristic. The surface of the material oxidizes over time on contact with air and, regardless of the original colour, always turns to a dark red/purple. This is why all YZ pieces seem to be made out of the same coloured plastic. But were you to remove the surface layer the original colour, often yellow or green, would be revealed underneath. For an in-depth account of Faturan's history (and the myths which have grown up around it) see ' Faturan - An investigation into a mythical material' by Ian Holdsworth and Ibrahim Faraj.
If you're not sure of the type of plastic in an item, there are a couple of (hopefully) non-destructive tests you can try.
- The Hot Water Test
If you're brave enough, an effective test is to run the plastic under hot tap water for a few seconds.
If it smells a little like a school chemistry lab (formaldehyde) or carbolic soap, it's a phenolic (phenol-formaldehyde) resin.
If it smells like Vicks VapoRub (camphor), it's Celluloid.
If it smells like burnt milk, it's Galalith.
If it smells clean, or like nothing at all, it's possibly poly(methyl methacrylate) - manufactured under many different trade names, including Lucite and Perspex.
- The Rub 'n Sniff Test
If you're lucky, you can make the "sniff test" work. No hot water needed, just rub the sample really hard until it emits an odour. Many of us though (especially smokers, whose hands already contain formaldehyde from the cigarettes) are unable to discern an accurate smell by rubbing.
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Eyes
Compare any YZ novelty with a similar one from the same period by a different maker and the eyes are likely to be the things which draw your attention. YZ eyes always look bright and new. Others, though often painted to be similarly bright, now, after 80 years, look dull and dowdy. The reason for the difference is that the yellow/orange colour of the YZ eyes comes, not from paint, but from a layer of coloured glass laid down behind the clear glass of the lens and the black glass of the pupil. Yet another sign of the quality of YZ products.
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Although the majority of YZ creations had eyes of various shades of yellow, there were occasional exceptions: | |
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Nuts
Tagua Nut
The Tagua nut (usually pronounced ta-qwa or tah-gwa) is commonly known as Vegetable Ivory 
and it is a 
sustainable, ecofriendly source of ivory-substitute. The nut is the fruit of the ivory-nut palm (Phytelephas macrocarpa or Phytelephas aequatorialis), which grows in tropical America from Paraguay to Panama. The female palms bear large woody, burrlike fruits, each containing several seeds, usually about the size of hen's eggs but which can reach the size of an apple. The immature seeds are gelatinous and edible. The mature seeds are the ivory nuts, white or cream in colour, close grained and very hard when 
dried. The cellular structure and grain is similar to that of elephant ivory, but is more dense and resilient. It resembles the finest ivory in texture and colour, is slightly softer than mammal ivory and usually contains a void in the centre of the nut. The husk of the nut is dark brown and is frequently incorporated into the final piece.
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For over two hundred years vegetable ivory has been used by ivory carvers in the making of netsukes, dice, dominoes, and chess pieces. Other uses were for cane and umbrella handles, pipes, mah-jong tiles, sewing needle cases and scrimshaw. Religious figurines and toys were also carved from it. In the late eighteen hundreds, through to World War II, the ivory nut was used to make high quality buttons for the clothing industry. Some were even used on United States army uniforms.
The nut was widely used for the bodies, and often the heads, of the birds, the polished, mottled husk being used as part of the decoration, often being removed from one part of the nut to reveal the inner creamy ivory colour, creating the breast and forehead of the bird.
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Tagua nuts have a hole in them which may be incorporated into the design, disguised, hidden or simply plugged.
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Coquilla Nut
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The coquilla nut is the fruit of a Brazilian palm (Attalea funifera), which is closely related to the 
coconut palm. Its fruit, 3 to 4 in. (7.6 - 10cm) long, is very hard, of a richly streaked brown, and capable of taking a fine polish; it has historically been used in cabinetwork and for umbrella handles, candlesticks, and dice cups. The carved product was combined with ivory, or in the case of jewellery, with jade. Today the coquilla nut is still being carved into buttons and other household items. The nut is also a source of palm oil.
Henry Howell frequently used coquilla nuts in the YZ creations, in both their polished and unpolished form.
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And Non-YZ
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Wood
The YZ wood was mainly bamboo and ebony, though oak, gorse, briar and others were also used.
Ebony
The traditional ebony is a dense, heavy wood. Known for its jet-black colour, ebony actually varies from deep black to dark red, with a variety of rich dark shades. It is one of the most difficult woods to carve, due to its hardness.
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Many YZ novelties incorporate Macassar ebony, native to Southeast Asia - a beautiful hazel-brown black-striped wood, important in the production of canes, where it is used for the most expensive shafts.
The Proceedings of The Linnean Society of London (December 16th, 1915) relate that the General Secretary showed some slabs of "Figured Ebony" and examples of walking-sticks made from that material by Henry Howell & Co Ltd. The source of that ebony (probably Diospyros kurzii, known as Andaman Marble Wood or Zebra Wood) was the Andaman Islands and it seems not unreasonable to assume that that species of ebony was also later used in some of the YZ novelties.
Bamboo
Much use is made of bamboo in YZ products - often the visible bamboo stems but also the rhizomes. A rhizome is simply an underground stem.
Stems:
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Rhizomes:
The surface texture of bamboo rhizomes lends itself to incorporation into YZ designs
Sometimes the form of the rhizome itself even seems to suggest a finished product:
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Thuya
The company occasionally refers, in its literature, to the use of a wood, Thuya Algera, in YZ construction. The trees which produce that wood grow in the Atlas Mountain regions of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia and the botanical name is Tetraclinis articulata.
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The much-prized thuya wood comes not from the trunk but from burrs (or burls) underground which grow out from the roots. A burr is a tree growth which has grown in a deformed way, forming a lumpy structure. It results from a tree undergoing some form of challenge - in the case of thuya, often fire which kills or badly damages the growth above ground. Stress on the burr's developing tissues results in unusual and very attractive grain patterns. The wood is quite brittle, making it difficult to work.
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A thuya burr
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Striking Surfaces
Shagreen
Shagreen is a type of untanned leather, which may be made from the hides of horses, asses 
and camels (rawhide shagreen) but, in the YZ context, shagreen is made from the skins of some species of rays and sharks (fishskin shagreen). Nowadays the main form of shagreen is stingray. Shagreen became an important type of leather for luxury accessories in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Fish skin shagreen was often used to cover small cases, such as those for spectacles, scissors, drawing and surgical instruments and, since fish skin shagreen was less smooth than rawhide shagreen, it was also applied to the barrels of telescopes and microscopes, where its rougher texture provided a better grip. For the same reason, fish skin shagreen was also use to cover the handles of swords and knives, where a good grip could be crucial.
That roughness is the reason why Henry Howell used fish skin shagreen as a match-striking surface on some of the YZ smokers' novelties.
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Enimatch
Enimatch was the company's name for their own (unpatented) manufactured striking surface.
A promotional article in The Fancy Goods Trader of November, 1927 stated of the YZ range that 'An "Enimatch" striking surface (which will ignite any kind of match) is fitted to all the models that are made up as smokers' accessories.'
Henry Howell's first (and, to the best of my knowledge, the only) use of the word in an advertisement was in September of 1928, also in The Fancy Goods Trader, which carried the information: 'ENIMATCH STRIKERS on all Match Stands.'
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Horn, Bone etc.
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Although not frequently found in the YZ range, horn and bone were often incorporated into the designs of YZ-like products by other manufacturers.
Since the YZ range was, for a time, produced for sale by Dunhill, it's hardly surprising that some used pipe bowls in their construction:
But golfing birds aren't unknown:
Goldstone
When YZ products were being marketed by Dunhill an advertising sheet was produced from Dunhill's New York office. It refers to the availability of the Grampus model in goldstone.
Goldstone is a man-made material that's sometimes called aventurine glass. It's made of crystallised copper in glass and is widely reported to be produced by adding minute specs of copper to molten glass. Although goldstone is glass filled with copper, the way it's produced is more complex. The glass is first heated until it becomes molten. Granules of copper oxide are then added to the mixture and dissolve because of the high temperature. Once fully dissolved the melt is sealed off from the air and allowed to cool, during which time the copper forms octahedral-shaped (two pyramids, joined at their bases) crystals. Slow cooling allows time for the reflective metallic crystals to grow to a large size.
