Ichthyosaur fossil plate

[Mousehead]

This looks authentic to me but I wanted to be sure.  The fossils in the background of these photos kind of raised some red flags for me, especially the air holes in the trilobite mortality plate on the left.

 

Ichthyosaur bones on a fossil plate, origin is listed as Posidonia Shale Formation, Holzmaden, Germany.

 

Thanks friends!

[LordTrilobite]

They look real to me. Really nice prep too, that's some professional stuff.

[sneakyelf]

Looks real.

It is nice to see the crack through the right side of the plate that was repaired. That crack goes through the bones at different angles which is what you would suspect to happen when the plate cracked because the density of bones is different than slate.  

 

I've see fake bones put on old substrates, but one of the flaws is the putting perfectly intact bone over flawed matrix. Another thing is that attaching a fake bone to slate is tough because it would be really hard to hide whatever adhesive was used. It's a lot easier to hide on a sculpted matrix like some fake Moroccan trilobites. And then with the keichieosaurus there are plenty of people carving bones out of the matrix and painting them black and getting away with it because the bones are so small that it can be hard to see what is there. Your ichthyosaur plate shows surface details of bones that would be so time consuming to fake that it wouldn't be worth it.  

 

If you find yourself on the pathway to possibly spending serious money on fossil collecting, consider buying a professional reproduction of something just so you can study it under magnification so you can see the difference between fossil and repro.

 

The hardest fakes to spot are the composites.  Using chunks of another animal fossil to fill in gaps for a more valuable fossil happens. 

[Ludwigia]

It appears real enough to me as well and you see them quite often over here. There are enough of these type of plates to be had that there's really no need for anyone to fake one, since they actually have no great value.

[Mousehead]

Thanks for the info everybody.  @Ludwigia can you elaborate on your point that these have no great value?  There don't seem to be too many of these listed online and although it's subjective I think this plate is pretty unique and cool looking.

[Ludwigia]

56 minutes ago, Mousehead said:

Thanks for the info everybody.  @Ludwigia can you elaborate on your point that these have no great value?  There don't seem to be too many of these listed online and although it's subjective I think this plate is pretty unique and cool looking.

Well, admittedly they do cost a bit generally, but they're not all that pricey compared to more complete specimens with intact skulls, vertebrae or paddles. They are not uncommon over here in Southern Germany and they are offered up quite regularly. Here's a typical one which I prepped for a fellow collector a couple of years ago. I do however agree with you that the plate you're showing does look cool.