Yes very true, the gum-line.
It is hard to imagine they grow from the base and not from the tips, but it is the fact!

I was hunting RSA in 2001, and april 2003 my trophies arrived.. Well, most of them at least.. A couple of small warthogs were missing.
I received an e-mail that there were some problems, but that they should arrive soon.
Yesterday I finally got them.
One skull mount and a set of tusks on a plate..
The skull mount is mine, but not the other tusks.. They`re actually a lot bigger then the one I shot..

What can I do? Have anyone experienced the same?
It`s very sad.. This were trophies from my first African hunt, and they`re important memories for me, despite the small size..

Anders,
You can write the outfitter you hunted with complain to him.
You can threaten leagal action. Unfortunately you will probably never get your tusks back.

I had a big problem with Capricorn Taxidermy in Pietersberg.
I got the wrong cape on my Greater Kudu and my Warthog turned into a female when I opened my crate. It took over a year and the threat of suit in RSA to get some of my money back and a replacement warthog.

There are taxidermists who will take your beautiful cape and sell it to some one else like "Skin and Bones" in the USA and substitute an inferior cape on your trophy. I'd be willing to bet it happens all the time. Most hunters never notice.

Trophies are a big part of your safari memories. You go to all the trouble and expense to collet them, then some jerk steals parts of them to make a bigger profit. Terrible!

The same thing happens to me in Texas. I did end up with the right trophy, eventually.

You probably already know this, but just in case, the tusks of hogs actually grow from deep in the jawbones of hogs and when the are extracted are actually 2 to 3 times as long as they appear when still attached to the freshly killed animal. In fact, it is not uncommon for a taxidermist to actually "lengthen" the tusks for an open mouth shoulder mounted hog.

The memories are the most important part, not necessarily the trophies. However, I can relate. After I killed my first wild turkey, there was the requisite photo taking, and I kept the tail fan, beard, and feet with spurs. After I got home and took the film to the developer, it turned out that the film had somehow or another gotten fully exposed, blank. I thought that I might actually cry, because I put more value on the photos than the trophy. It's hard to carry around a trophy, but I really enjoy pulling photos out of my pocket or briefcase and passing them around.

On my warthog, the brown stripe is about 30% of the way up the tusk. Obviously the smaller the tusk, the less showing past the brown stripe as the amount of the tusk inside the jaw to the lip is approximately the same from adult animal to adult animal one would think.

If I am not mistaken, the brown stripe should be at the gum-line, not at the lips. They grow like rat's teeth. In European and US feral hog, the upper and lower teeth usually meet and wear against one another and can get very sharp. I've never closely examined a wart-hogs, maybe in 2008, but they don't appear to wear as much.