Amazon delivered it first thing this morning (it's kind of amazing living around a big city with a lot of same day and weekend deliveries. I think I ordered it Friday night sometime. By the time my wife opened the door to go water the plants, it was sitting there.
Took a fair amount of sanding, including a bit off of each end but I finally got it as identical to the original as I'd ever be able to see. And I A-B'd the two saddles a few times as I fine tuned the sanding on the new saddle. There's not a huge difference, but I believe the bone saddle does add a bit of volume and clarity. Not enough that I'd miss it if it was gone (I was more than satisfied with the tusq saddle), but probably enough to keep it on there. The intonation is about a cent off on one string, but otherwise is pretty much identical to the tusq saddle, so that's not an issue.
After I'd gone back and forth a few times I put a new set of strings on and I'm gonna just live with the bone saddle and probably switch back again when I next change strings. And I'll probably know for sure at that point. But I think it's gonna stay on there. And, I can basically guarantee I'll never bother to try to dye this saddle. If it had come like this from Emerald, I'd have never given it a second thought and probably won't even see it within a few days. Kind of goes with the light arrow-stripe in the top of my cocobolo veneer which passes through it.
Anyway, thanks for the suggestion and help...
-Ray
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