Collection storage and care

[Ossicle]

I was wondering how people store their fossils.

 

Mine started off in jars, which protected them from dust and allowed me to display and look at them.

 

When I got slabs of clay I used cardboard boxes to store them, and small items have wooden trays, boxes and drawers.

 

Now I have bookcases of boxes and wooden storage, and a cabinet.

 

Is there anything you do to conserve fossils? I'm looking at storing pyratised material separately with sillica gel sachets to delay or prevent deterioration.

 

Do you catalogue your collection, and/or photograph it? I do this with parts of my collection, the bits that are most interesting to me. I don't with my zillions of serpulid tubes.

 

Do you have a pile of less interesting fossils that you can't bring yourself to get rid of? I take quite a bit home that I think I will discard if it turns out to be uninteresting. And yet I still have so many worm tubes.

[FossilBaron]

Most fossils in my collection that aren't on display are stored in cardboard strawberry flats. I fill flats with fossils from the same location when I can, but most are mixed together. Others are in drawers or cabinets. 

 

I tried cataloging and numbering my collection before, but never got very far, and I have no interest in doing so in the computer. In that case, many of the less interesting or repeated fossils were cataloged together as one item if I got them at the same time.

 

Only a small portion of what I find makes it to collections, most is set aside to be sold, given away, or discarded outside depending on quality. Unfortunately I haven't been very successful in selling or giving away so most of it sits in flats in the basement.

[Crusty_Crab]

You've touched on many subjects that have been subject to a lot of discussion here. 

 

12 minutes ago, Ossicle said:

I was wondering how people store their fossils.

 

Due to my entomology background, I use wood and glass drawers with cardboard box inserts to organize them. They are "Cornell University" size:   https://www.bioquip.com/search/DispProduct.asp?pid=1012AM

 

The drawers slide into cabinets for access and organization. 

 

 

12 minutes ago, Ossicle said:

Is there anything you do to conserve fossils? I'm looking at storing pyratised material separately with sillica gel sachets to delay or prevent deterioration.

 

I apply light coats of Paraloid B-72 as needed to help stabilize fossils. Pyrite decay is a subject that has a lot of discussion which you can search for. In addition to the silica gel, applying a coating such as B-72 may also help slow down the oxidization process, but does not stop it completely. Also note that applying a coating may also initiate another reaction. Best to do research on what you are coating it with to be sure.

 

 

12 minutes ago, Ossicle said:

 

Do you catalogue your collection, and/or photograph it? I do this with parts of my collection, the bits that are most interesting to me. I don't with my zillions of serpulid tubes.

 

Yes, I believe best practice is to catalogue everything. You may not think it is interesting, but it may be interesting to someone else. Many rare or interesting specimens also are not readily apparent. Everything should be properly labeled (ID, description, location, age, geologic context, date collected, collector, etc.). Keeping an online digital record is also best practice since physical labels and catalogs can degrade, get lost, etc. Such sites as myFossil.org help store images and info. digitally and make your collection available to everyone else. 

 

12 minutes ago, Ossicle said:

 

Do you have a pile of less interesting fossils that you can't bring yourself to get rid of? I take quite a bit home that I think I will discard if it turns out to be uninteresting. And yet I still have so many worm tubes.

 

Donate to schools, join a club and use them as giveaways for public outreach/education events. Be mindful of what you collect, don't over collect and let the next explorer have a chance to enjoy the site.

[FF7_Yuffie]

My fossils are all still wrapped up in their boxes. I have plans to get some glass display cases and some sort of layering such as light gravel to display my eggs in. I have quite a few Ovi eggs which I want to arrange as a sort of composited nest, along with a riker mount to display my eggshells with it. But I am far too lazy to actually make the trip to go shopping for glass cases and usually have other stuff on weekends to do. I also plan to get another glass case to display my pterosaur teeth all together (eggs and pterosaur are the only fossils of mine that I have here in Taiwan--the rest are in the UK) but again, my laziness gets in the way. I'll get there one day. In my mind, it will look really good--in execution, it will likely look nowhere near what I imagined.

 

I do catalogue all my fossils. Whenever I buy something new, I update my spreadsheet. I have seperate ones for British, US, Morocco, Rest of the World, Eggs/Eggshells and Pterosaur and include species, sub species, where it was found, where it was brought, how much I paid, anything unique about it (like predation marks) etc. I also photograph mine to pop on my Facebook "fossil collection" album.

[SteveE]

On 2/22/2022 at 12:36 PM, Ossicle said:

Do you catalogue your collection?

 

Actually I have three collections.   The first is the "Smart Collection", which contains catalogued specimens complete with field notes.   The second is my "Dumb Collection", which has no numbers and I can't remember the details about when and where each thing was found.  And notes for the dumb collect?  Ha!    My third is the "GOD Collection" (for Gradual Onset Dementia).   These rocks are awaiting processing and there is still some hope I can match them up to notes, assuming I took any, or at least memory.  The Dumb collection seems to have a very large gravitational pull, and acts as a bit of accretion disk, because it steadily sucks in rocks from the GOD Collection, and never lets them go.   When I do the rare kids program, I put out a random intermixed pile from the Smart and Dumb collections and ask the kids to sort them.   Someone eventually figures out that some rocks have numbers that are in my notebooks, others don't.  Someone always asks if I will help ID their exciting finds in the future, and I always tell them I will only help with rocks from the kids SMART collection!   Now if I can just follow my own advice and never bring one home without a number and some notes....

Edited February 27, 2022 by SteveE

[jpc]

I like that... smart and dumb collections.  Nice terminology.