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I was wondering if a blast cabinet is required to air scribe fossils outdoors? (As long as one wears the proper PPE and safety equipment of course.) I’m trying to save some on my setup until I gather the rest of the cash needed to buy the blast cabinet and move my prepping indoors. And besides, the cold has never really bothered me anyways.

Hello, As someone who has only started collecting fossils over the past several months and exclusively via purchasing, I wanted to ask people on this forum what their thoughts are on "imperfect" fossils; namely, their approaches and advice to tempering expectations for imperfections in a fossil given one's limited budget. It's no surprise that better-preserved higher quality specimens fetch significantly higher prices, and in general I'd rather spend more for a good, representative specimen than get a cheap, "bad" one. But prices can increase exponentially with increasingly "perfect" specimens, and so with a limited budget sometimes the perfectionist in me gets caught in a repeated cycle of gauging and worrying about whether I'd regret not buying the even more expensive one. This is all despite understanding in theory that past a certain "good enough" quality, it is simply not realistic cost-wise to endlessly chase perfection. There's also the variable of certain fossils just generally being far rarer in good preservation. Where and how does one draw the line? I think I might already somewhat know the answer to this; that it is partly a matter of adjusting my expectations, since fossils are fundamentally different from manufactured collectibles. Being the remains of deceased organisms, they are not mass-produced in a controlled environment, so perhaps imperfections within reason are to be happily accepted as an inevitable part of the fossilization and collection process, and even biology in general; a missing arm here, some nicking or crushing there, etc. Perhaps there is even a beauty to be had in some imperfections? Fossil collecting is a passionate hobby for me due to my fascination by physical traces of exotic ancient life, but I have neither the intent nor resources to try and build the world's most perfect museum of a collection. At the same time I feel it's only natural to want one's treasures to be as nice as possible. What are your thoughts on this? How does everyone else deal with their expectations for imperfections in fossils; do you experience some struggle in this balancing act? I apologize if this is too serious of a topic and belongs in another thread; please let me know if this is the case. Thanks for reading this lengthy post, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

So I have a question. What are some of the best budget fossils for the beginning collector? I’m just getting into fossil collecting, and I don’t really have a focus yet, I’d just like to start off with a few representative pieces and then eventually I might try to narrow down my collecting scope. I’ve been browsing the forums a bit, and I’ve noticed some nice ammonites and trilobites can be had without breaking the bank, there’s some nice second quality Megalodon teeth out there that are reasonable, plants and fish from the Green River area are priced right, and there’s some affordable and good looking Spinosaur and Mosasaur stuff from Morocco (although from what I’ve read I’m a bit leery about some of it). Is there anything else that anyone would recommend for a beginning collection? My interests have always ran towards the large theropods and ceratopsians, but like I said, I’m starting small and eventually someday I hope to own that monster T-Rex tooth that everyone dreams of. Thanks for all the help.

Hello everyone, I recently took a trip to Aust in the UK and got myself some nice chunks of bone bed with various large bones and teeth embedded in the rock. I am wondering what tools are recommened for me to try and get some of these out? I have never done this before but would like to give it a go as currently random chunks of rock on my shelf doesn't look the best haha plus it will be fun exposing ichthyosaur and pliosaur parts! I do not have a huge budget so I can't be spending thousands of pounds but I am willing to spend a little on getting the right tools. Any questions please ask. Thanks in advance Lance