bethlehemolivewood.net/Tree of Life Olive Wood

[EricRN]

Has anyone ordered olive wood from these guys? How long did it take to receive your order? I put in an order for some Jerusalem pen blanks almost three weeks ago. They charged my card the same day, and I received a confirmation email, but haven't heard a word or received any product since. I emailed them to check the status as well and got no response. I'm starting to wonder if I've been taken and just need to write it off. But I feel like I've seen folks say they've ordered from them and had good experiences, unless I'm confusing some similarly worded website...

 

[cjester]

I haven't, I ordered from Olivewood2000 on eBay. If the order is being shipped from Israel it might take a few weeks - with a chunk of that spent sitting in customs waiting to be cleared.

When I looked at this website I got a certificate expired error (expired 8/20). It's an easy thing to miss, and many businesses do (not just small ones!). But I wouldn't order through this site until they renew the certificate.

 

[walshjp17]

I got mine from Mike E. Saad. He's on FB a lot in the pen forums. Fabulous figure and reasonable cost.

 

[magpens]

I have ordered from them, but it is a few years ago. . No problem at all. . Excellent product. . Delivery was surprisingly quick ... under 2 weeks as I recall.

 

[penicillin]

The reason that I buy Bethlehem olive wood blanks is the certificates that come with them, pure and simple. Olive wood has beautiful grain and makes great pens, but olive wood is not particularly rare or valuable. You could turn any olive wood, make a certificate, give it to the recipient, and they would never know better. It is a matter of integrity that I buy the blanks with certificates. Besides, who are you really fooling?

I originally bought Bethlehem olive wood pen blanks at the local Rockler store. Grain pattern varies a lot between blanks. Look at the ends to guess how they might turn out. (Pun intended.) Rockler also sells Bethlehem carob wood with certificates. Carob wood is relatively plain and creamy, sometimes with light pink or peach coloration. It makes pretty pens. Rockler's Bethlehem pen blanks come from WoodTurningz.
https://www.rockler.com/bethlehem-olive-wood-pen-blank
https://www.rockler.com/bethlehem-carob-wood-pen-blank

So far, all of my Bethlehem wood has gone into Faith, Hope, Love pen kits in antique brass and antique pewter. They are Penn State kits. Pay attention to the tube lengths and bushing sizes when you line them up on the lathe for turning. They are different for tip, band, and cap.
https://www.rockler.com/faith-hope-love-twist-pen-hardware-kit-antique-brass
https://www.rockler.com/faith-hope-love-twist-pen-hardware-kit-antique-pewter

I placed a recent order with Penn State, and decided to toss in a one-pound box of assorted Bethlehem olive wood cut offs with certificates on impulse. I am very pleased with what I got, a great value for the money. See the photos.
https://www.pennstateind.com/store/WXPR01BP.html

Pay attention to the wording on the certificates. Some come from "Israel" and others from "The Holy Land". Some include words mentioning Jesus, as in "birthplace of Jesus." Others do not mention Jesus. Your recipient may or may not care, depending on their personal or religious beliefs.

Penn State certificates are copyright 2003. They say "... authentic olive wood from the holy city of Bethlehem in Israel." and "authentic Bethlehem Holy Land olive wood." They do not mention Jesus. I do not know if the second statement indicates which company harvests Penn State's Bethlehem olive wood.

WoodTurningz certificates do not have a copyright mark or date. They say "... authentic Olive Wood from Bethlehem, the Holy Land. They do not mention Israel or Jesus. They are more technical about the wood, talking about the properties of olive trees, etc.

There is no law against making your own certificates. I bought some ancient bog oak pen blanks from Ireland, and they did not come with presentable, small (business card size) certificates. I got a full-page scientific document, suitable for framing on the wall of a calibration lab. I designed and printed my own card-size certificates. They weren't great, but they worked.

Photos:
* Rockler's Bethlehem olive wood blank in the package. It say "Woodturningz, Inc." above the bar code.
* Two sides of the PSI one pound bag, with the included certificates and stickers. The stickers are very flimsy, and most were cut off, as you can see. I tried to flatten the bag, but some blanks are two high, so I flipped the package over and took a second photo.

 

[cjester]

The certificate I was referring to for bethlehemolivewood.net is the web encryption certificate. While we call them certificates, they're effectively an encryption key. If a URL starts with http: then everything is transmitted as plain text - easy to snoop and read. If it's https: then the communication between the site and your computer is encrypted, rendering it unreadable to others. These encryption certificates need to be renewed every few years. Something bethlehemolivewood.net failed to do a week or so back. I wouldn't put anything personal, like a credit card, into that site until they fix it.

 

[cjester]

As for certificates of authenticity, olivewood2000 from eBay also provided them. They were fairly generic, mentioning only "Holy Land", but they were also basically photocopies. I won't use them, I'll make up my own. But I did cut the shipping label off the box to store with the blanks so I have proof/reference of where I got them if I ever need it.

 

[FrankH]

I recently bought some beautiful figured Bethlehem Olive wood from Exotic Blanks. They came with certificates of authenticity. Great blanks.

 

[robutacion]

The reason that I buy Bethlehem olive wood blanks is the certificates that come with them, pure and simple. Olive wood has beautiful grain and makes great pens, but olive wood is not particularly rare or valuable. You could turn any olive wood, make a certificate, give it to the recipient, and they would never know better. It is a matter of integrity that I buy the blanks with certificates. Besides, who are you really fooling?

G'day,
I totally agree with you on the integrity aspect of it, however, making money and integrity are very difficult to match, the temptation to make a buck out of people religious beliefs has been an old "fight" of mine directly related to Olive wood.

You can get stunning Olive wood from any place on Earth these trees grow, the quality of the "common" Olive trees species is similar while grain patterns have a lot more to do with time/tree age than anything else so and with that said, are Olive trees wood all the same, for the average non religious person, only the grain quality has significance, reason why high grain grade wood/blanks have a high demand and that is perfectly understandable, however, for a religious person that has a higher "connection" to Olive trees, the grain quality is not their main interest even though a nicely grained piece of Olive wood offers a lot more appeal than a piece of Olive wood sapwood but the SIGNIFICANCE that matters to them is if that piece of Olive wood has come from an old tree from the Holy Land or not, the "certificate" means nothing as everybody knows but, having a true piece of Olive wood from the Holy Land with a true certificate that would be the most desirable combination.

That "or not...!" means anywhere but the Holy Land, Australian grown Olive trees are no older than 180 years old while many other countries such as Portugal where Olive trees are almost 1,000 years old, Spain, Greece and Italy even older so finding old Olive trees is not as rare as one may thing but, and this is where things get "ugly", most of the commercial Olive wood on sale these last 20 years has come from Italy, "other" countries are importing it to make their own due to the value put of these wood species in our days, however, in more recent years people started to become aware of this trend and has started to put a lot more attention to the product origin and as a result, the value of this product has come down much more in parallel to what its value should be, was not that long ago that pen Olive wood blanks with certificates would sell for $5.00 each, today they sell for half or less, what do you think made that happen...?

So in resume, my hat goes out to those that still have that integrity and respect religious values instead of taking advantage of them...!

PS: (Disclaimer) While I have a deep understanding of the issues raised above, I am not a religious person nor affiliated with any known religion.

Cheers
George

 

[penicillin]

The certificate I was referring to for bethlehemolivewood.net is the web encryption certificate. While we call them certificates, they're effectively an encryption key. If a URL starts with http: then everything is transmitted as plain text - easy to snoop and read. If it's https: then the communication between the site and your computer is encrypted, rendering it unreadable to others. These encryption certificates need to be renewed every few years. Something bethlehemolivewood.net failed to do a week or so back. I wouldn't put anything personal, like a credit card, into that site until they fix it.

I just noticed @cjester 's comment about the digital certificate used to authenticate the https://bethlehemolivewood.net website. They are correct. The digital certificate expired on 20 August 2019 and has not been renewed as of today (9 September 2019).

As cjester recommends, I would avoid the site until HTTPS works without error, which means that they got a renewed digital certificate.

 

[TellicoTurning]

As a non religious and skeptic person, I am suspect of all "certificates of authenticity." Since I no long do pens, I'm not really concerned with the aspect of certificates, but I do like the looks of pretty olive wood.

As a former international shipping manager, I know that olive wood from the Mediterranean areas can be shipped into Israel where a certificate of "authenticity" can be fabricated, then exported to the U.S. or Australia, or anywhere else and since the shipment shows origin of Israel can be claimed to be Bethlehem Olive... Not intending to take anything away from anyone by my opinion. Just my take on the situation.

I do love turning olive wood for the grain and the smell while turning.. smells like olives... would like to get blanks large enough to do some pepper mills.

 

[Curly]

Chuck George has olive and has cut some for me before to make bowls and pepper mills with. Someday I'll get to them.
Note. They won't come with certificates but George will sign the blanks without a charge.

 

[WriteON]

Don't write anything off. Dispute Credit Card sale and move on... learn from it. Another learning experience. I saw pens with authentic civil war whatever wood. Probably from General Flub Adubbs outhouse floor.

 

[robutacion]

As a non religious and skeptic person, I am suspect of all "certificates of authenticity." Since I no long do pens, I'm not really concerned with the aspect of certificates, but I do like the looks of pretty olive wood.

As a former international shipping manager, I know that olive wood from the Mediterranean areas can be shipped into Israel where a certificate of "authenticity" can be fabricated, then exported to the U.S. or Australia, or anywhere else and since the shipment shows origin of Israel can be claimed to be Bethlehem Olive... Not intending to take anything away from anyone by my opinion. Just my take on the situation.

I do love turning olive wood for the grain and the smell while turning.. smells like olives... would like to get blanks large enough to do some pepper mills.

G'day

I do understand the true meaning of "Certificate of Authenticity" and the cost involved with paying for a specialised lab to validate the item species, age, etc., in many cases hundreds of thousands of dollars are required to cover authenticating something with a certified document, in the case of the Olive wood the costs are much lower mainly due to the fact that the material is known, age is fairly easy to determine as so is the nature of the possible locations where these trees have grown, genetic analyses can easily determine the type of soils and nutrients and many many other elements, these trees have grown at, soils and weather patterns between Mediterranian countries and Israel are far different so, testing a few samples of Olive wood is not as difficult as one may think, a few years back when I "exposed" the true facts, some folks were really stunned and at the same time "annoyed/irritated" with the fact that they have been taken for a ride so, the Certificate of Authenticity we are talking about have no true certification from no lab, they are simply "I say so and I need you to belive...!" because I want to sell, therefore, they have absolutely no value to me, they are no more than a "sales" tactic/tool to fool the uninformed person, being uninformed is not a crime but taking advantage of the uninformed is "something else"...!

Now back to the natural beauty of a nicely grained piece of old Olive wood, that is quite a treat, some of us have had the pleasure/ability/fortune to experience working with beautiful and nicely scented Olive wood, I have been particularly lucky in that respect but I have also put a lot of sweat work and tears to "acquire" multiple aged Olive trees roots and all, I don't hide the fact that Olive wood has been my preferred tree species from since I was a little boy, many decades later that still unchanged.

Oh and by-the-way, my Olive wood comes with no Certificate of Authenticity, I do however share with the world where these trees lived/grown, how big they were, how I did cut/harvest them, who helped me, what tools were used, how it was transported, where it was stored, how it was sliced, sealed and shelved, did I say so...? I sure did, did you believed me...?

Unfortunately, 2 factors that one has to deal with when considering purchasing "fair" sizes of Olive wood blanks from a far country are that the wood is super heavy and International shipping costs that keep going up and up, that is beyond my control.

PS: Talking about Olive wood...! do you know that Olive wood sawdust/dust is one of the worse tasting woods I know...?

Cheers
George

 

[Larryreitz]

This has been a great thread. A few months ago I bought a small block of very nicely figure olive wood from Woodcraft which I cut up into pen blanks. There was a small sticker on the block which supposedly authenticated it as BOW. I was going to copy the sticker and use it if and when I sold a pen made from the olive wood. I misplaced it and now I won't even bother looking for it. I think the information provided by others in this thread makes a better sales story unless the potential customer is looking to fulfill deeply held religious beliefs rather than purchasing a really elegant pen. In that case I'd rather not sell than potentially mislead.
Larry

 

[FrankH]

I discovered that the Olive wood sold by Exotic blanks is very nicely figured. They make great looking pens.