Anyone know what happened to these Elephant tusks?

F. C. Selous mentions a Commandant van Rensburg in his book "Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia".

A certain Jansen van Rensburg ist mentioned in a book by Lawrence Green: "Great North Road". All of Green's books are great fun to read, some "tall tales" i guess - lots of lore and legend and mystery from Africa.

Then i found a story in an old "African Sporting Gazette", written by Willie Vermaak; he writes that a van Rensburg was his great-grandfather and Adam Janse van Rensburg his grandfather. F. Janse von Rensburg was the hunter of the big bull elephant, as mentioned in the first post on this thread, there may be a relation. Vermaak writes that grandfather van Rensburg shot a bull with 154 / 143 lb tusks - is this the one on the photo or were there two giant bulls taken by the van Rensburgs?!

I will see if i find out more; the sad thing is, that the boer hunters of East Africa don't get much credit in the old hunting books as most of them were written by englishmen or germans. Sometimes you read about a "mighty boer hunter" somewhere in Tanganyika or Kenya, but rarely a name is mentioned.
At least P. J. Pretorius and John F. Burger were good hunters/writers with Afrikaner-ancestry.

Regards:
Kouprey

rensburg.jpg
 

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I searched my library and came up with some more informations about van Rensburg in the following books:
"Legends of the African Frontier" by David Chandler
"Inside Safari Hunting with Eric Rundgren" by Dennis Holman
"My Pride and Joy" by George Adamson.
"Africa's Greatest Tuskers" by Tony Sanchez-Arino

The different details regarding the tusk weights are interesting...

Took some snapshots and hope that it's readable...

adamson_van rensburg.JPG
chandler_van rensburg.JPG
holman_van rensburg 1.JPG
holman_van rensburg 2.JPG
sanchez_van rensburg.JPG
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I searched my library and came up with some more informations about van Rensburg in the following books:
"Legends of the African Frontier" by David Chandler
"Inside Safari Hunting with Eric Rundgren" by Dennis Holman
"My Pride and Joy" by George Adamson.
"Africa's Greatest Tuskers" by Tony Sanchez-Arino

The different details regarding the tusk weights are interesting...

Took some snapshots and hope that it's readable...

View attachment 353794 View attachment 353795 View attachment 353796 View attachment 353797 View attachment 353798

Thanks for all the good history. It is interesting to read the same from multiple sources.
 
11' are they really? I look at the length of the rifle and the height of the man and 11' seems a little extravagant.
I doubt if the fella is 8' tall lol.
Men are measured from feet to head tusks along the outside curve
 

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