The nineteenth-century construction of European and American pianos relied on a regular supply of African ivory. Celebrated for its tactile qualities, this material came to epitomize elite musical practice as well as bourgeoisie taste and domestic order. Given that ivory was perceived to be crucial to the production of piano keys, this expanding musical culture depended on material and labor extraction from across Africa, especially in the eastern regions that supplied the entrepôt of Zanzibar with a flow of tusks. Often, traders forced slaves to haul their valuable cargo to the coast, ensuring that ivory’s supply chains were hugely problematic. This chapter examines the ivory trade and emphasizes its significance for the nineteenth-century piano industry. In doing so, it argues that there was little social concern surrounding the commodity until the twentieth century, despite its troubling means of extraction. By comparing ivory to the earlier links between slavery and sugar, this chapter asserts that the absence of public campaigns directed against the ivory trade can best be understood by analyzing the cultural value of this problematic material, including the political economy of its supply chains.