8 ms·

I do not agree with destroying unique/rare artifacts, especially fossils.

ashark 10y ago
Vertebrae are among the cheapest parts of a dinosaur. Spinosaurus isn't an especially rare dinosaur. Morocco, where they sourced this, sells dinosaur bone by the crate-load (literally). It's also a hotbed of fakes and mediocre pieces fixed up to look nicer than they are, so DO NOT buy anything from Morocco unless you know exactly WTF you are doing. This piece was destined to be sold to a dupe at a huge mark-up for use as a paperweight anyway. No great loss. Mosasaur is an impressive but common fossil in Kansas. You can offer a museum there a complete skull for free and unless it's remarkable for some reason they'll turn you down (or take it and sell it if they're shady, I guess). Complete skeletons aren't uncommon in private collections. Probably one of the easier impressive-looking ancient predators to acquire to hang over the entryway in your secret lair if you're a budget-consious supervillain. A hunk of jaw not connected to a larger find is a trash-tier item among Kansan collectors. I'm guessing the story's similar for most of the other things on there (I don't know much about the rest). [EDIT] I hadn't noticed how many of these things are fossils on my first look, so I guess I do know about more of them. Broken Megalodon teeth are also so common that you couldn't give them away to a collector or museum—they have little to no value except for impressing kids or use in an art project (so, like this). That's not to say it doesn't cost money to get one, but they're not remotely rare. A large, whole (including ROOT and TIP!) one with intact, finely-detailed serration? That's another matter, but that's not what this is. Broken dire wolf jaw, not that rare or scientifically valuable. Dunno about the Ankylosaur pieces but judging from the rest, probably not rare. Don't know much about giant sloth fossils, but claws in general tend to be among the rarest single pieces of any given megafauna. Wouldn't be surprised if that cost them more than any of the other animal fossils to acquire. Still, unlikely it's anything a museum would care to have. Jurassic tree: common enough you can buy really big, polished slices of it for under $100 if you know where to go. Unimproved, large hunks for less. My great-grandma had a an ~20lb piece eroding away in her rock garden, and she didn't even live near where you can pick it up off the ground and wasn't really into fossil collecting. Crinoid: another Moroccan piece so this was going on the suckers' shelf at a touristy rock & fossil shop anyway. Not sure about this particular variety, but there are thousands of segments of these in the rocks outside my kids' school, and probably tens of thousands more in the creek next to it, all eroding away. Mind, I don't mean to knock this product, just noting that destroying these fossils wasn't any kind of blow to science or global heritage or anything.
- partycoder 10y ago
  Nothing wrong about owning them and preserving them but I feel bad about destroying them, if not for scientific purposes. There are many of them but they are non-renewable. There is a finite supply of them. And if we create market demand for them they might go very quickly. This is how we pushed rhinos into extinction. Rhinos seemed at some point to be very abundant, now they're gone for good.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Do you know how many fossils end up each day in aggregate and gravel? The vast majority of fossils even those which are scientifically collected have no real value or use, many of them can't even be sold as cosmetic paper weights and are often disposed off simply because they take too much space.
    - partycoder 10y ago
      Egyptian mummies, especially mummified animals such as cats, were acquired en-masse to be processed into fertilizer. I also do not think it is the ideal use for ancient items.
      - dogma1138 10y ago
        It's not the same thing, marine fossils make up many types of aggregate. Pretty much any aggregate that is dug from places that used to be under water and is made out of sediment and marine rocks is made out of fossils. If you go to Morocco, Utah, Jordan Valley and 100's of other places around the world you can just spend some time pick up pretty nice looking specimens and go home. The 100 millionth dinosaur tooth or jawbone really doesn't add any value not to mention the 100 gazillionth coronoid that would otherwise end up in your parkway or your cat's litter box. Like seriously visit Morocco https://sites.google.com/site/gemwanderings/morocco https://sites.google.com/site/gemwanderings/morocco there and in many other places fossiles are litterarly the natural gravel in the dirt.
        10y ago
dogma1138 10y ago
You can buy fossils including Dinosaur ones for fairly cheap in many places in the world. http://www.ebay.com/sch/sis.html?_nkw=Fossil+Collection+Spinosaurus+Triceratops+Tooth+Oviraptor+Dinosaur+Bone http://www.ebay.com/sch/sis.html?_nkw=Fossil+Collection+Spin... Most fossils are "trash" and often end up in aggregate especially marine fossils.
- goodJobWalrus 10y ago
  How does one know these are genuine?
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Many usually come with some sort of certification, and if you buy from a reputable source there is very little reason to worry. These are so common and cheap that it would be more expensive to create a passable replica. So in many cases even the "fake" ones are not fake they are just shark, alligator or any other more recent reptile rather than a dinosaur when it comes to teeth. Morocco isn't a good place to buy teeth if you don't know what you are looking for simply because the local peddles don't know better. And shark teeth and crocodile teeth are also very common.
    - jeron 10y ago
      why did you bring up Morocco and not any other country? Are they known for selling teeth?
      - cstejerean 10y ago
        "The specimen in the Mini Museum comes from the center of a crinoid stem, also known as a "columnal". It was recovered near Talsint, Morocco."

Vertebrae are among the cheapest parts of a dinosaur. Spinosaurus isn't an especially rare dinosaur. Morocco, where they sourced this, sells dinosaur bone by the crate-load (literally). It's also a hotbed of fakes and mediocre pieces fixed up to look nicer than they are, so DO NOT buy anything from Morocco unless you know exactly WTF you are doing. This piece was destined to be sold to a dupe at a huge mark-up for use as a paperweight anyway. No great loss. Mosasaur is an impressive but common fossil in Kansas. You can offer a museum there a complete skull for free and unless it's remarkable for some reason they'll turn you down (or take it and sell it if they're shady, I guess). Complete skeletons aren't uncommon in private collections. Probably one of the easier impressive-looking ancient predators to acquire to hang over the entryway in your secret lair if you're a budget-consious supervillain. A hunk of jaw not connected to a larger find is a trash-tier item among Kansan collectors. I'm guessing the story's similar for most of the other things on there (I don't know much about the rest). [EDIT] I hadn't noticed how many of these things are fossils on my first look, so I guess I do know about more of them. Broken Megalodon teeth are also so common that you couldn't give them away to a collector or museum—they have little to no value except for impressing kids or use in an art project (so, like this). That's not to say it doesn't cost money to get one, but they're not remotely rare. A large, whole (including ROOT and TIP!) one with intact, finely-detailed serration? That's another matter, but that's not what this is. Broken dire wolf jaw, not that rare or scientifically valuable. Dunno about the Ankylosaur pieces but judging from the rest, probably not rare. Don't know much about giant sloth fossils, but claws in general tend to be among the rarest single pieces of any given megafauna. Wouldn't be surprised if that cost them more than any of the other animal fossils to acquire. Still, unlikely it's anything a museum would care to have. Jurassic tree: common enough you can buy really big, polished slices of it for under $100 if you know where to go. Unimproved, large hunks for less. My great-grandma had a an ~20lb piece eroding away in her rock garden, and she didn't even live near where you can pick it up off the ground and wasn't really into fossil collecting. Crinoid: another Moroccan piece so this was going on the suckers' shelf at a touristy rock & fossil shop anyway. Not sure about this particular variety, but there are thousands of segments of these in the rocks outside my kids' school, and probably tens of thousands more in the creek next to it, all eroding away. Mind, I don't mean to knock this product, just noting that destroying these fossils wasn't any kind of blow to science or global heritage or anything.

partycoder 10y ago
Nothing wrong about owning them and preserving them but I feel bad about destroying them, if not for scientific purposes. There are many of them but they are non-renewable. There is a finite supply of them. And if we create market demand for them they might go very quickly. This is how we pushed rhinos into extinction. Rhinos seemed at some point to be very abundant, now they're gone for good.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Do you know how many fossils end up each day in aggregate and gravel? The vast majority of fossils even those which are scientifically collected have no real value or use, many of them can't even be sold as cosmetic paper weights and are often disposed off simply because they take too much space.
  - partycoder 10y ago
    Egyptian mummies, especially mummified animals such as cats, were acquired en-masse to be processed into fertilizer. I also do not think it is the ideal use for ancient items.
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      It's not the same thing, marine fossils make up many types of aggregate. Pretty much any aggregate that is dug from places that used to be under water and is made out of sediment and marine rocks is made out of fossils. If you go to Morocco, Utah, Jordan Valley and 100's of other places around the world you can just spend some time pick up pretty nice looking specimens and go home. The 100 millionth dinosaur tooth or jawbone really doesn't add any value not to mention the 100 gazillionth coronoid that would otherwise end up in your parkway or your cat's litter box. Like seriously visit Morocco https://sites.google.com/site/gemwanderings/morocco https://sites.google.com/site/gemwanderings/morocco there and in many other places fossiles are litterarly the natural gravel in the dirt.
      - 10y ago

dogma1138 10y ago

You can buy fossils including Dinosaur ones for fairly cheap in many places in the world. http://www.ebay.com/sch/sis.html?_nkw=Fossil+Collection+Spinosaurus+Triceratops+Tooth+Oviraptor+Dinosaur+Bone http://www.ebay.com/sch/sis.html?_nkw=Fossil+Collection+Spin... Most fossils are "trash" and often end up in aggregate especially marine fossils.

goodJobWalrus 10y ago
How does one know these are genuine?
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Many usually come with some sort of certification, and if you buy from a reputable source there is very little reason to worry. These are so common and cheap that it would be more expensive to create a passable replica. So in many cases even the "fake" ones are not fake they are just shark, alligator or any other more recent reptile rather than a dinosaur when it comes to teeth. Morocco isn't a good place to buy teeth if you don't know what you are looking for simply because the local peddles don't know better. And shark teeth and crocodile teeth are also very common.
  - jeron 10y ago
    why did you bring up Morocco and not any other country? Are they known for selling teeth?
    - cstejerean 10y ago
      "The specimen in the Mini Museum comes from the center of a crinoid stem, also known as a "columnal". It was recovered near Talsint, Morocco."