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Tyrannosaur Rex Premax Tooth condition


Jacobloven

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Hi everyone! 
 

I’ve been thinking of purchasing this T-Rex tooth. As you know they do not come cheap nowadays so I would really appreciate any input. 
 

According to the seller it was found in Hell Creek formation, South Dakota and has no cosmetic restoration whatsoever. It’s in it’s found “crushed state”. Approx 3 inches long and 1 3/8 inches wide.
 

Do you see any red flags with it?

 

Thanks!

 

 

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I think it looks appropriate to the description.  My first concern would be that its a composite of parts to make a larger, more valuable sale item, but the striations and colors I can see in your pics look to line up as expected.  It has been heavily epoxied, or at least glued.  That base is epoxy filled.  But considering the condition, its all probably needed to keep it stabile enough to handle and transport.  

 

My opinion, no red flags.

"There is no shortage of fossils. There is only a shortage of paleontologists to study them." - Larry Martin

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IMO The bigest concern is how stable is the tooth and Is it stable enough to ship oversea . 

 

Best regards

Guns

Edited by Guns
Correct word
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My guess is that this tooth was shattered into small fragments and VERY poorly cobbled together to make it look complete.  I'm leaning against that its a composite. Fill was added around the tip, small slivers to hide the gaps and most likely a lot of the slivers do not  belong where they were placed.  Some areas are missing.  Again a very poor job of restoring the tooth to its orginal shape.   An unprofessional hack job. 

 

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Thank you very much for the input, greatly appreciated. Another question, once it is put together in this way, how difficult would it be to re-restore it? I seems really fragile from the pictures.


Overall, I agree on the risk of it being a composite. 

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3 hours ago, Jacobloven said:

Thank you very much for the input, greatly appreciated. Another question, once it is put together in this way, how difficult would it be to re-restore it? I seems really fragile from the pictures.


Overall, I agree on the risk of it being a composite. 

 

Depends on how it was restored. If it was done with something like a BUTVAR or PVA glue, it would "easy" to deconstruct.  If it was done with superglue, it could be accomplished but probably not worth the effort.  If it was done with epoxy (which the base appears to be), basically impossible.  You cant soften or dissolve epoxy, and the bond of epoxy to bone will be stronger than the bone, so you'll just completely destroy it in an attempt.

"There is no shortage of fossils. There is only a shortage of paleontologists to study them." - Larry Martin

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I think the risk of a composite is low but present.  What appears to have occured is that the front end of the tooth was in matrix and the back end exposed to the elements and just exploded.  Can it be  re-restored, probably but like hadrosauridae indicated depends how it was assembled.   I would ask the seller what was used to put the tooth together, was the center epoxy.   Reminder even if doable there are lots of missing areas that need to be filled and painted. 

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