Real keichousaurus?

[MohammadAAK]

Hello all,

 

i was offered this keichousaurus and was wondering if someone has an idea if it’s authentic, judging from the photos only. The seller describes it as museum quality. And it’s supposed to be seven inches. These are the best photos I was able to get. It is supposedly from China from an old collection exported in the 80s.

 

Best wishes

[MohammadAAK]

I just received locality information, it’s feom Falong Formation, Guizhou province, China

[Bobby Rico]

Looks pretty good and really complete to me. A nice specimen of probably a male going by the size of its forearm. Wait until other have replied because better to get a couple of opinions 

[Ludwigia]

The plate which it is on has been pieced back together by the looks of it, but the fossil itself appears to be original and in good condition. The preparation work is also good. I'd say that this is a good sample.

[MohammadAAK]

Thank you, I appreciate your opinions and that’s comforting to hear! 

[MohammadAAK]

How do you upvote a post, I’m really new to forums

[Ludwigia]

6 minutes ago, MohammadAAK said:

How do you upvote a post, I’m really new to forums

"upvote"?....if you mean "update", then just click on "Edit" at the bottom of the post. However, you may not have access to that function yet, so if that is the case, you should contact a Moderator or Administrator.

[MohammadAAK]

Just now, Ludwigia said:

"upvote"?....if you mean "update", then just click on "Edit" at the bottom of the post. However, you may not have access to that function yet, so if that is the case, you should contact a Moderator or Administrator.

Oh. I thought the +4 on my account is when people upvote your post.

[Ludwigia]

1 minute ago, MohammadAAK said:

Oh. I thought the +4 on my account is when people upvote your post.

Aha! Now I understand you. Just click on the sharks tooth at the bottom right of a post and you can give the poster an "Informative" vote.

[MohammadAAK]

3 minutes ago, Ludwigia said:

Aha! Now I understand you. Just click on the sharks tooth at the bottom right of a post and you can give the poster an "Informative" vote.

Thank you!

[steelhead9]

Buy it!

[Fossildude19]

Aside from some painted parts, It looks pretty real. 

[MohammadAAK]

1 hour ago, steelhead9 said:

Buy it!

Done!

22 minutes ago, Fossildude19 said:

Aside from some painted parts, It looks pretty real. 

Thank you, its a relief to know! Can I ask which part of it you think is painted? How can you tell?

[Fossildude19]

The bones underneath are real, but painted over, as are the hands, and the teeth on the skull, if not the entire skull. 

The lines are uneven, and not uniform. Much of it is probably painted, but many of them usually are.

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

[MohammadAAK]

13 minutes ago, Fossildude19 said:

The bones underneath are real, but painted over, as are the hands, and the teeth on the skull, if not the entire skull. 

The lines are uneven, and not uniform. Much of it is probably painted, but many of them usually are.

    

 

     

Thank you, that makes complete sense, I guess the only way to be absolutely sure is to put it under a microscope when it arrives.

 

[aeon.rocks]

18 hours ago, MohammadAAK said:

Thank you, that makes complete sense, I guess the only way to be absolutely sure is to put it under a microscope when it arrives.

 

Yes, always check with mic. But this makes no sense to me:

 

Quote

The bones underneath are real, but painted over, as are the hands, and the teeth on the skull, if not the entire skull. 

The lines are uneven, and not uniform.

Quote

Aside from some painted parts

 

 

Where do you see pant?

 

Areas you marked are not painted imho, you see different shade of "black", but that's from prep (due to abrasive) in this case.

 

"Uneven lines" on skull are teeth sticking out of matrix and skull not fully preped. And check close ups of fingers to see individual digits. 

 

I don't see any resto here (except maybe matrix could have been glued in 1 or 2 parts, but that's ok - try to find em splitting rock in 1 piece...). An example of a good Keicho specimen (which was not totaly preped with "angle grinder" or acid overpreped). It's not the best, but good preparation and could be prepared further, i.e. teeth and some other parts of skull, matrix between verts... 

[MohammadAAK]

1 hour ago, aeon.rocks said:

Yes, always check with mic. But this makes no sense to me:

 

 

Where do you see pant?

 

Areas you marked are not painted imho, you see different shade of "black", but that's from prep (due to abrasive) in this case.

 

"Uneven lines" on skull are teeth sticking out of matrix and skull not fully preped. And check close ups of fingers to see individual digits. 

 

I don't see any resto here (except maybe matrix could have been glued in 1 or 2 parts, but that's ok - try to find em splitting rock in 1 piece...). An example of a good Keicho specimen (which was not totaly preped with "angle grinder" or acid overpreped). It's not the best, but good preparation and could be prepared further, i.e. teeth and some other parts of skull, matrix between verts... 

Thanks, the seller told me explicitly that this specimen was not painted nor enhanced

Im still very new to fossils (less than a year collecting) so looking to learn much more

[Fossildude19]

4 hours ago, aeon.rocks said:

Where do you see pant?

 

Areas you marked are not painted imho, you see different shade of "black", but that's from prep (due to abrasive) in this case. In your opinion.

 

"Uneven lines" on skull are teeth sticking out of matrix and skull not fully preped. And check close ups of fingers to see individual digits. Again, in your opinion.

 

I don't see any resto here (except maybe matrix could have been glued in 1 or 2 parts, but that's ok - try to find em splitting rock in 1 piece...). An example of a good Keicho specimen (which was not totaly preped with "angle grinder" or acid overpreped). It's not the best, but good preparation and could be prepared further, i.e. teeth and some other parts of skull, matrix between verts... 

Testing a small area with acetone on a cotton swab will likely show us the truth of the matter, one way, or the other.  

 

I believe I already stated where I saw paint. 

IMHO, I believe those areas are painted.   

 

Let us just agree to disagree at this point.   

 

 

EDIT: It is a very nice fossil, regardless.  Many of these have a bit of touch up paint, and as long as it is well done, shouldn't really affect the aesthetics of the fossil.

[Troodon]

Is the presence of paint, if touched up, a road block for you to acquire this specimen?   If not move on.  You can always test it when it arrives.

[MohammadAAK]

47 minutes ago, Troodon said:

Is the presence of paint, if touched up, a road block for you to acquire this specimen?   If not move on.  You can always test it when it arrives.

Not if it was heavy. I think painting on a minimal scale is justified.

[aeon.rocks]

4 hours ago, Fossildude19 said:

 

I believe I already stated where I saw paint. 

IMHO, I believe those areas are painted.   

 

Let us just agree to disagree at this point.   

 

 

EDIT: It is a very nice fossil, regardless.  Many of these have a bit of touch up paint, and as long as it is well done, shouldn't really affect the aesthetics of the fossil.

 

 

You marked the areas, but it was not clear to me what you consider painted there and why would bones be painted over. My comments are always just my opinion, but in this case that opinion based on experience with prep of old export Keicho material. Collectors usually base such opinion on general common knowledge (sometimes stereotypes, in case of Morocco often), but unless you have high res photos not every different color shade is a hint for paint. Of course always difficult to say for 100% from photos, there is always a possibility that some areas are very well restored and can go undetected in photographs or even in hand. So we can be wrong, even when we think the fossil is 100% natural. More interesting question would be, does it matter to you if 100% complete fossil is only 97% or 99% or 99.99% natural? And why?, if yes and it's purpose is for display... 

 

You can see individual digits, maybe some tips are missing (easy to lose those in fast prep), but not sure where you see paint, that's real bone and I don't see any hints to guess about paint in this case.

 

 

That's teeth sticking in and out of matrix you marked there and lower jaw a bit visible: 

 

Same for verts, no paint there, but different prep techniques have different effect and can give slightly different color-shades (or just photo glair...). 

 

If more time was spent in prep that skull might look similar to this: 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ruger9a]

I absolutely LOVE the details/teeth in the skull...…  Excellent photography.  I have a few of these, but not in as nice of condition/detail as your  specimen is.

[aeon.rocks]

1 minute ago, Ruger9a said:

I absolutely LOVE the details/teeth in the skull...…  Excellent photography.  I have a few of these, but not in as nice of condition/detail as your  specimen is.

 

Was not my specimen, just prep. And maybe (just maybe, because hard to say from photos, but i think in this case ok) the "OP's specimen" could be "repreped" in a similar way. It's a possibility when, you have unprepared or not destroyed over-preped specimens... And also why I sometimes complain about commercial preparation. 

[Fossildude19]

You make some valid arguments. 

And everyone should be aware of them.   

 

However, there is also the possibility that the fossil was overprepared, and required some painting to even colors out on the bones, to make it more attractive to potential buyers. This practice is not new, and frequently employed.

 

The photos provided are less than optimal. 

But with the photos provided, I still believe there is paint involved. 

 

It will remain up to the OP to inform us of what he finds when the  fossil arrives.

[aeon.rocks]

Well, sure, there's always some possibility with commercial fossils. The Chinese (note, I don't mean anything bad against Chinese guys, it's the same in USA, Morocco, EU) prepping for commerce just work as fast as possible and that often results in over-prepped specimens (then enhanced with paint in some cases sometimes), and sometimes techniques used are inappropriate... The irony is that collectors think Keichos are rare and pay a lot of money for such common Chinese fossils, which are usually ilegally smuggled out of China (except when old collections, but what's the probability that all Asian sellers sell old collections and have a huge stock?). And even more ironic - (unfortunatelly) either not preped well (just rought out fast to see the shape, but better as completely destroying) or overpreped (destroyed). When collectors pay a lot of cash for that fast prep and can't understand what they are financing... that's just ironic. Same collectors then complain about Moroccan prep. I haven't seen a very good preped Keicho with detailed pics for sale in a long time, for sure there are many very well preserved and preped in China (easy material, but takes time to prep), but we can only guess from fuzzy photos. And I think there's always a reason for bad photos of poor commercial prep quality material on our favourite auction sites.

 

Anyway, the bones in this case (of all Keichos) are full, so even if you over-prep, that doesn't affect the color of the bone much (mostly just texture and shape), no need to paint on real bone (unless you paint everything or sculpture the bones). But sure, bad pictures...