Has this Green River fish been restored?

[jikohr]

Hi everyone,

 

I acquired this fish about a year ago and was told there was no repair/restoration/funny business. Showed to a friend who agreed. Recently showed it to another friend who said it looked funny. Now after taking a closer look I'm having doubts especially with the teeth which look painted. Showed it to a third friend who said the teeth sometimes look like that. It's a big fish, about 13 inches that I IDed as Phareodus encaustus. 

What do you all think?

[Fossildude19]

I am not seeing anything major indicating restoration.  There may have been some paint added to the body, and the skull is a bit disarticulated, but otherwise the fish looks pretty good to me.

 

@Ptychodus04  @RJB 

[Rockwood]

The preparation of fish from the 18" layer is an extremely exacting process. It may have been less than perfect in some spots.

[RJB]

Front part of skull looks to be painted in a bit.  Hard to tell from those photo's.

 

RB

[Ptychodus04]

It's definitely hard to tell from these photos. The close up pics aren't clear enough to determine if it is painted or just poorly prepped. The skull does look to be painted in the pic of the whole fish but a clearer close up is needed to be sure. What makes me suspicious is the color difference between the obvious bone (black) and the suspect area (dark brown). This could be due to bone flaking off during preparation. It appears to be heavily consolidated.

[Troodon]

Would a good 365nm UV light show the presence of paint?

[hemipristis]

2 minutes ago, Troodon said:

Would a good 365nm UV light show the presence of paint?

if it's oil based

[snolly50]

Odd coloration at skull in image of whole fish. Don't know why. Close-up photos - unless those areas were painted by a precision robot; there's no paint. I don't think it possible for a human to paint such small features without incidental paint smears/overlap. Look at it closely with a microscope or 10X loupe. You should be able to spot any paint mishaps. if none; then you are golden. The jaws are displaced, putting teeth in unnatural positions.

[jikohr]

Here are some better pics of the jaws and skull, do these help? Also I looked at it with a UV light and didn't see any difference in any area.

 

 

[Randyw]

In my unexpert opinion it looks ok to me. To my untrained eye it looks like part of the upper jaw is disarticulated and out of position and the lower jaw has come loose and flipped under whats left of the upper jaw giving it those “ kissy lips” LOL

notice the teeth of the upper going over the flipped lower jaw…

[Sagebrush Steve]

Looks to be prepped about as well as I do on my specimens, which isn’t saying much.  This one is probably even a little better than mine.  I agree it has not been painted.  The color variations are typical of the differences I find between actual bone and the filmy residue of what I believe are the remains of soft tissue.

[jikohr]

2 hours ago, Randyw said:

In my unexpert opinion it looks ok to me. To my untrained eye it looks like part of the upper jaw is disarticulated and out of position and the lower jaw has come loose and flipped under whats left of the upper jaw giving it those “ kissy lips” LOL

notice the teeth of the upper going over the flipped lower jaw…

I was not ready to read "kissy lips", that genuinely made me laugh!

 

[Ptychodus04]

Thanks for the extra pictures. IMHO, after seeing the new pics, it’s not painted. The color difference is likely where the “preparator” destroyed the bone and all that’s left is a bit of coloration. The jaws are definitely disarticulated. This is extremely common with Phareodus. It’s definitely a rough preparation.

[jikohr]

Thank you so much everyone! This really alleviates my worries.

 

Better safe than sorry with this stuff!