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Cornuproetus cornutus trilobite fossil


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Hi

 

I'll pre-face this by saying that I collect fairly cheap fossils as a little hobby and am very far from an expert!

 

So I bought a fairly inexpensive moroccan cornuproetus cornutus trilobite fossil which has just arrived today.

 

I opened it and immediately was was taken aback by how clean the fossil looks compared with any other trilobite fossils I own (although most of these I have picked up from market stalls for cheap or found myself). I'd expect to see little dints, fade, discolourations etc. but the whole thing just looks a little too good to be true to my admittingly untrained eye.

 

Pics here;

 

When looking closely as edges, it kinda looks like it's been painted at points. Almost jade black colour.

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Underside

 

 

Description on the site was

 

Cornuproetus cornutus
Mid Devonian, Eifelian
Jbel Issoumour, Near Alnif, Morocco

 

So is it real? Has it been painted? Or is this just a very nicely detailed model?! Thoughts much appreciated

 

Thanks

 

Thomas

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I am not sure about paint or any repairs that may have been done to it but overall it is definitely a real bug.

The detail that you see in your piece would be very hard to replicate, there are also marks left by the preparation tools which you can see on the first picture on the glabella and the part of the cephalon that protrudes a bit. These marks or scratches occurred when the bug was being prepared and the person doing so may have slipped up or unexpectedly hit the trilobite itself, such marks would not be present on a fake bug.

Overall it looks like a nice piece.

 

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It looks like it may have some sort of coating to make it shiny. I doubt it's painted, as Misha stated there are some unsightly dings from the preparation (which is very hurried on many morroccan bugs). These marks would be very easy to cover over with paint and maybe a little putty, it seems unlikely someone would paint the trilo and not bother to cover over that damage. Overall I think it's a pretty nice bug. 

Try taking a look at the eyes under strong magnification, you may find lots of very very tiny eye facets, preserved compound eyes. :trilosurprise:

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That's a nice real good commercially prepped bug, can't say about restoration from these pics, but don't see any obvious areas. Not painted.

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