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I bought this 3.5" Carcharodontosaurus tooth on a certain auction site recently for $650. It looks real (and not a composite) to me, but the color does seem a bit strange in a few places. I'm sure it's just a natural pattern and I'm (slightly) worried over nothing but I have to ask. Does the tooth look dyed to any of you? If so, it was VERY carefully done but this is my first dinosaur tooth and I haven't really seen enough to be completely sure. The seller has 100% positive feedback with a lot of reviews. First three photos are indoors with flash, last two are outside. Indoor photos show the proper color (on my monitor).

I watched a youtube video on a fossil collection someone had purchased, and someone in the comment section actually said something like "buying fossils is for (expletive). I go out in 110 degrees and work all day to find mine". I thought "wow! do people really think like that?". So is there some unsaid rule that people who dig their own fossils are somehow cooler or tougher than those who buy them? I don't have any accessible fossil sites near me. My collecting career was limited to a few months I spent in southwestern New Mexico. I was then in an accident from which I'm still recovering, which prohibits me from strenuous activity. Just curious. I just bought some fossils online. Scott

I'm looking at purchasing an egg online from an online auction site. It is shipping from China, therefore I am a little skeptical if it is authentic. I don't want to spend a bunch of money on an egg that is a complete fake. Thank you in advance for the help!

I'm pretty new to buying fossils, and I noticed some nice looking trilobites and other stuff from this same seller. I can't tell if it's been painted or repaired or anything. Has it? It looks a little shiny. Not sure why... Thanks, Scott

I have a $25 ebay card. I want to buy 1 or 2 paleozoic fossils with it. But there are so many to choose from! What kind of pre-dinosaur fossil would you buy with a $25 ebay card? Thank you.

I made an eBay purchase and discovered loose loose items in with it. Trying to identify them. Don't know anything about their origin but am trying to get more info from the seller. Any help would be appreciated.

There is a followup article about the Smuggled Ichthyosaurs. It is: ‘Nothing fishy’: Canadian owners of ancient fossils repatriated to China deny any wrongdoing by Douglas Quan, National post January 17, 2017 http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/nothing-fishy-canadian-owners-of-ancient-fossils-repatriated-to-china-deny-any-wrongdoing The original post is: Smuggled Ichthyosaur Returned to China by Canada at: http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/71237-smuggled-ichthyosaur-returned-to-china-by-canada/ Yours, Paul H.

Hi, I am posting a question to help my mom. She is very fascinated with ammonites after seeing my collection. She found this one online and she wants it but isn't sure if it's authentic or fake. I have a surriceras ammonite with similar markings but I can't personally tell with this one being uncurled. any help is appreciated

I'm sure these must have been posted in the past, but I couldn't find them in a basic search. They are truly horrible forgeries, of such poor quality that, to be frank, you'd need to be an imbecile to assume they were genuine. However, given that the world isn't short of complete idiots, I post them here for posterity. The seller actually tells us about his prep methods (hydrochloric acid), and each of these has many bids, exceeding $100 each at the time of writing. How many of these bids are from real people - if any - I don't know.

While I was browsing for some fossils on eBay, this one caught my eye. The seller described it as a "fossilized human finger". Probably not a finger, is it a concretion? Hopefully, nobody gets tricked into buying it, skin is rarely ever fossilized. Otherwise, it'd be bone.

Hello all, as some of us may have noticed while skulking Ebay, there has been a trend with many "specimens" of certain Chinese vertebrates being listed and sold: Turtles(Manchurochelys), Birds(Confuciusornis) and even Reptiles(Monjorosuchus). Firstly, most of us here will agree that all of these specimens are faked! Since there was a recent thread asking about the authenticity about the turtles, it is clear that many amateur collectors(myself included) are considering buying or have bought some of these "fossils" and I hope my observations in this post can help prevent you from being scammed. Last year, before Ebay was flooded, I acquired two specimens(a turtle and reptile) against my better judgement from a different Japanese auction site. One of the pieces arrived broken cleanly in two, and I was able to tell that the reptile and the turtle(by association with the same dealer) are faked. To the untrained/unfamiliar eye however, it becomes hard to distinguish as these fakes are crafted with a level of detail rarely seen before. These are not churned out from an assembly-line, but rather painstakingly hand-crafted so that every piece is more or less unique. They are usually painted grey or in some cases a shade of brown like mine. Some of these specimens are even fabricated on the same Jurassic/Cretaceous matrix with remains of real Lycoptera fish. Also, as you can see from the following photos of the broken areas, the reptile in question is sculpted from some kind of epoxy material. One of the limb bones even fell off cleanly! The details of this specimen has some resemblance to real examples of Monjorosuchus(Manchurosuchus). Not everyone will be able to tell the difference! Thanks to the advice of Scott(Piranha) on TFF, I stopped myself from acquiring a "Confuciusornis" as well and was able to claim back my money from postal insurance. I will say with 100% certainty that all these vertebrate fossils are crafted by the same process as the "Monjorosuchus" above. Edit: Here are a couple more pictures of the faked Confuciusornis, the skull looks completely iffy but everything else is very intricately crafted! More pictures of the bird here. A few last observations, I noticed that these listings on Ebay started popping up last year. At first, it was just a few turtles, but have now expanded to this so-called "Trinity" of vertebrates. It is clear that there is big money being made from this and amateur collectors need to know what is going on. There are multiple sellers taking advantage of this new cash cow(or belonging to the same syndicate) who build up their Ebay rating by selling small cheap electronics/hardware before listing these fakes in an attempt to fool you. Also bear in mind these are all private listings and it is not possible to tell if they are shill bidding on each other's items to drive prices up. Ebay used to have people moderating their fossils section for fakes, but this is not the case anymore and I doubt reporting these listings will have much impact. I urge you all to consult TFF members for advice before making any purchase if you are uncertain! I have included more photos at higher resolution at the following imgur album(warning:large size): http://imgur.com/a/076uT. I hope that any prospective buyers out there will learn from my experience. Also, if there is anyone here with more experience with these kinds of vertebrates, please share your thoughts!

Hello I see a lot of this fossils on ebay and some with good prices , are they real or not ? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-BIG-Chinese-Best-Triassic-Keichousaurus-Real-Turtle-Fossil-FREE-SHIPPING-/321348971186?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ad1e42ab2 Thanks for your time.

Okay. So today I decided to expand my trilobite collection to all kinds of countries. North America, check. Africa, check. Asia, no. Now, I must find an Asian trilobite! So one of the trilobite species I know about is Ductina vietnamica. eBay seemed like a good place so I search it. I find Ductina vietnamica for only $12! These trilobites are found in China and I have had a bad experience with Chinese fossils (as a kid, I found one of my Chinese fish fossils to be a fake!) Due to my experience, I immediately start doubting if this is real. It's only $12! Here are some pictures of the eBay listings and you can see the prices. Any suggestions on whether it's the real deal?

http://www.ebay.com....9#ht_500wt_1156 As some of you might know, I have been on the hunt for various Cretaceous marine predators, one of which is a marine crocodile. i came across this Elosuchus tooth in Ebay and snatched it up quickly, as I 've never seen an Elosuchus tooth being up for sale before. I would appreciate it if any experts could look at it and judge if it's a genuine Elosuchus tooth. Thanks!