Caveat Emptor Moroccan Fossils

One huge area of fossil fakery and forgery in the collecting world is in Moroccan fossils. There are full-service fake fossil factories in Morocco whose sole purpose is to pump out large volumes of this garbage which deflates the market for the real thing and dumbs down the collective fossil I.Q. of the denizens of the fossil market. This is a rampant problem everywhere I go and it is driving me nuts. Below is a brief primer on some of the more common examples of this growing problem. 

This is a genuine mosasaur skull from Morocco.

This is a detail of the above mosasaur skull showing a close-up view of the jaw. Compare this to below.

This is a faux mosasaur jaw featuring genuine mosasaur teeth attached to it. These jaws often utilized real bone or fossil bone but are not mosasaur jaws and are shaped wrong and like this one are unnatural in the way the jaws rest in the matrix.

Faux trilobites being sold for $1150. Assuming for the sake of argument the trilobites are genuine (and I wouldn't) they certainly did not come out of the ground attached to that plate. Were this plate real it would fetch a whole lot more than that and not be out and unlocked for sale in an antique mall in Morro Bay, CA.

Faux trilobites - notice the symmetry of their placement and the perfectness of their features... and all for a price any middle class person can afford to pay. In reality, any genuine specimen this size and quality would be up for auction by Bonhams & Butterfield or even sold via broker quietly to a museum or high-end collector. The one above is essentially painted onto the rock plate and given a modest amount of detail and relief.

Especially obvious faux trilobites... rather highly stylized and produced cookie cutter-style as evidenced by their being exactly the same.

This is an obviously fake fossil collage or mosaic of various different pieces parts of various different individual fossil specimens of orthoceras and ammonites cobbled together with glue and cement in such a way as to appear to the uneducated eye to be a remarkable single plate specimen when it reality it is a sort of rock art tableau.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)

Caveat Emptor Meteorite

This past weekend I was in Portland, OR, for Gem Faire and encountered a turquoise dealer based in Nevada who claimed to be selling a meteorite he claimed he found in West-Central Nevada. He had the item in his booth and was selling it for $6,000. Right away I was skeptical given his sketchy reputation.

Rule #1 when looking to identify or purchase a meteorite is to acquire it from a reputable dealer in meteorites, NOT a turquoise dealer with a shady reputation in the turquoise business. I for one would limit myself to purchasing my meteorites from Geoffrey Notkin of Aerolite Meteorites with whom I have conducted business before. I highly recommend his Meteorwritings on Geology.org. It makes for a good primer on meteorites.

Rule #2 when looking to identify or acquire a meteorite is avoid purchasing meteorites featuring botryoidal chalcedony vugs with druzy quarts linings because real meteorites can't possibly possess them and this alleged meteorite most certainly did.

Rule #3 when looking to identify or acquire a meteorite is avoid purchasing meteorites lacking official documentation even if a sample has been removed from the object. The gentleman (and I use that word loosely) selling this item had cut a small knob off of this object and claimed he sent it off to be identified but failed to provide the documentary evidence which he did not even offer to show me.

This object was actually a chunk of hematite from where only God and that turquoise dealer knows. As Mr. Notkin would call it, this is a "meteor-wrong".

Note the small vug at bottom right. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Caveat Emptor Blue Agate

This past weekend I had the ignominious distinction of overhearing a Chinese dealer bullshit with an American citizen in the Salt Lake City Gem Faire. A simple-minded white woman asked the Chinese dealer what the beads pictured above were and he responded: "blue agate from Northern China".  A pox upon him and his commercial culture of deception and deceit that is running rampant across the globe and causing so much harm. There is little imagination and innovation coming out of China these days other than newer and more effective ways of selling more and more things of inferior value in a deceptive manner to the rest of the world while destructively exploiting multiple layers of resources across the globe be it mineral or technological or otherwise. The above beads are a very generic white agate with silica rind that could have come from a hundred different places on Earth which beads have been dyed in a most tacky fashion worthy of a tourist trap. For the record: I am in a rather strict boycott of any and all things Chinese. Given how much they dominate in so many areas of industry it is sometimes impossible to observe it but I do what I can. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved). 

Caveat Emptor Amber

At a wholesale bead show this past weekend one of the Chinese vendors was selling fake amber polished display pieces. I had seen this sort of thing before but this time I got around to actually capturing images of it. Below are five images I discretely snapped and provide additional useful information included in the corresponding captions for each image. I hope some of this information helps some consumers out there to become smarter consumers.

An obviously "staged" scene replete with a modern bee posed with roots within faux amber resin.

A modern scorpion staged with root material in an obviously-posed fashion.

A modern bee posed with roots but this time in "reconstituted" amber as opposed to resin.

Note the "reconstituted" amber features cooling fractures that look like small leaves within.

Both of these are too cheap to be real amber and yet over-priced for what they are.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)

Caveat Emptor Moldavite

I attended a wholesale show this past weekend and came across some fake Moldavite I am sharing this with you so you the reader can be a more informed consumer. The material was the centerpiece of four separate expensive pendants. I will not identify the dealer in question who I found selling this material so as to not upset the applecart of my friend who is in the show. However, just to spice this column up I offer two clues. If seller of the fake Moldavite were to know I outed him he'd try to throw me in the Black Hole of Calcutta and make me sari I did so. Update as of 12/03/11: two of the four have sold to to some simpletons.

The color is slightly grayer than the real thing and the etching is a bit less sharp than the real thing.

Notice the rather large diameter saw marks on the back of the "moldavite"?

Both photographs by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)