Jump to content

Is This A Fossil Beaver


Ramo

Recommended Posts

"I will very carefully wrap and ship this partially mineralized specimen anywhere" I say its just a old skull.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Im not sure how they can tell that its (partially mineralized?) That may be a good question to ask this person? But Ive also seen in the past how some people take modern day bones and soak them in tea for a few weeks to make them look much older! Im not saying this person did that, im just always skepticle.

RB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Partially mineralized" says it all, it's either fossil, or it isn't... I'd say it's not. If you read the questions to seller, one potential buyer points out the orange teeth. I've found hundreds of sections of Castor canadensis incisors, none of them were orange or even had an orange tint. However, the seller offers a 100% money back guarantee and that's what counts when you're buying fossils of any kind.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just don't like that the teeth are still white even though the rest of the skull is stained if it was a river find like they say and it was buried in the river bottom it should have an even color and the teeth should be darker at least a tan or brown color not white

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is all second hand info that I've not verified with any sort of research, but a buddy of mine recently bought a perfect 8 point whitetail skull from the Bonner Springs site in similar condition. He said its a Pleistocene peat bog. I asked if the skull was so perfect, why not sell the articulated post cranial elements with it, commanding an even higher price. He had no response.

Don't let color and mineralization be your only criteria for evaluation. Provenance is key. I've found many bones of extinct critters that were completely unmineralized yet easily identified as an extinct species. Much of the mammoth bone I find is light weight and tan. Other horse and bison bones are white and seemingly unmineralized, yet they have consolidated red sand and gravel cemented to them. Late Pleistocene remains are funny that way. Time isn't the only variable in preservation; minerals in the ambient sediments are key. Once upon a time on this board I showed an antelope or similar jaw with one glaring white, modern looking tooth jutting out of it. The rest of the jaw was dark gray, very old looking, fractured in several places, and cemented together with some form of calichefied sediment. The bone looked much older than most of my Pleistocene finds, yet the tooth looked modern. Sort of a "fossil oxymoron" I suppose.

Grüße,

Daniel A. Wöhr aus Südtexas

"To the motivated go the spoils."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What do you guys think. It looks in almost too good of condition to me.

http://cgi.ebay.com/COMPLETE-Fossil-Pleist...1QQcmdZViewItem

Bowkill - I've hunted the Kansas River -- the fossils are found on gravel bars. You never find anything articulated, let alone both sets of mandibles with a skull. Looks like it was preserved in "Folgerite" (soaking the bones for a week in very strong Folgers coffee to patina them.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

X

Now that's funny! I never thought of counterfeiting fossils from recent critter remains. Maybe some hateful Texan is seeding my favorite rivers in like fashion.

Grüße,

Daniel A. Wöhr aus Südtexas

"To the motivated go the spoils."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

none of the modern beaver skulls that I have found are in that good of condition. The bullae almost always come out on modern beaver. Mandibles you are lucky to find just one. I have some really old ones somewhere that are stained red. There is a type of potassium solutions I know some of my skull buddies use to give modern bones a fossil petina. You soak the bones in it for a week and bam it's stain completely through. Looks cool, but it's not real. Value is in what you are willing to pay for a skull. Non-stained modern beavers rarely sell for more than $40. That one sold at more than $200. Think I should manufacture a few fossils myself now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good sleuthing in the postings above.

I've also come across beaver remains and even recent skull material is not in this good a condition.

Warning signs:

It's from 'Wisconsin'... a state with lots of modern beavers...in fact so many that , like up here, they are trapped to keep the populations stable. The skull for sale is pristine condition and probably prepared from a fresh kill.

It's not just 'old' but supposedly 'Pleistocene'. Why pleistocene? This type of aging is questionable...if found in some type of alluvial deposits it wouldn't be a 'perfect' skull. Pleistocene and other recent pre-glacial formations are just not that diagnostic in most northern areas. Someone calls a fossil from fForida or Italy 'Pleistocene' then it's probably so...up here...ask 'why'.

What's sad, however, is that this is how a lot of 'junk' gets into the paleo community. In the year 2058, Jimbob posts on this forum "my grandfather left me this fossil skull. We don't know where he got but an expert sold it to him and said it's a million years old'...or Jimbob sells it at the flea market and the cycle continues when the buyer posts it again on Ebay in 2058. A lot of junk is passed on by unwilling accomplices to the fraud.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sounds like a good experiment to do and post results on the forum. I will definitely try it if I get a suitable skull. Won't be a beaver here in FL.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sounds like a good experiment to do and post results on the forum. I will definitely try it if I get a suitable skull. Won't be a beaver here in FL.

A few years back a friend and I collected a sack of cut-marked bones from a buffalo jump (kill sites where natives drove herds off of cliffs) and played a trick on a buddy. We gave the bones a light sanding then soaked them in a brown fabic dye to give them just a touch of beige. Then we scattered the bones on a spot on his property along with some native choppers. This fellow knows his artifacts and he was fooled for about 2 minutes but it was a precious 2 minutes. After a few months or so the dyed bones, left in the sun, turned a shade between pink and purple...designer fossils.

I'll have to try the 'Folgerization' technique mentioned above.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Folgers works well, tea seems to work better,... but the best is called potassium permanganate.

(also permanganic acid, potassium salts,...) You used to be able to pick it up in a drug store. You might have to look in chemical company catalogues these days.

You just mix it with water for the depth of color you want. (At this point you're gonna freak out cause it turns the skull purple - but the purple turns into a nice deep brown shade as it drys completely.) Then you just rinse it off & the put a sealer on it.

I used to do this in school. Collect a few skulls - stain them - and then knap arrowheads and bust the arrowheads in half - and attach them to the skulls. It made them look like Pleistocene animal skulls with an arrow going in one side & coming out the other - sort of like the old Steve Martin headgear.

(Apparently I had a lot of time on my hands in college - might explain those grades I got.)

2 words of warning.

1. - It's fun to experiment. But potassium permanganate is nasty stuff. :wacko: Caustic, toxic,... I looked on a website and the usual disclaimer is "DANGER! STRONG OXIDIZER. CONTACT WITH OTHER MATERIAL MAY CAUSE FIRE. CORROSIVE. CAUSES BURNS TO ANY AREA OF CONTACT. HARMFUL IF SWALLOWED OR INHALED."

2. - If you sell fossils I imagine doing this at all would totally crash your reputation. I never sell and like to experiment - so it was kinda fun testing this years ago. It also gives me a good viewpoint at shows like Tucson - I can spot fakery pretty well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well here you go. I tried 3 different things, and here are the results. This was after one day. (I didn't know the formula for Potassium per Maginate, or how to spell it)

post-40-1208902663_thumb.jpg

post-40-1208902723_thumb.jpg

post-40-1208902913_thumb.jpg

For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun.
-Aldo Leopold
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It starts out purple, and then changes to a reddish brown. I happen to have some on hand that I use to stain deer antlers that are bleached.

For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun.
-Aldo Leopold
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think so. The brown of a musket comes from actual rust I think. I think it puts a coat of Iron Oxide (rust) on the barrel to prevent further rusting?? I don't know

For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun.
-Aldo Leopold
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In answer to the browning and blueing- all metals rust to some extent or another. Even metals like aluminum form a rust or "oxide", but in many cases, the rust only penetrates one atom thick, in iron however, the rusted metal tends to flake off, exposing more metal to the rusting process, and eventually leaving large pits and holes. The acts of browning and blueing "rusts " a piece of metal with salts (I thnk in an anerobic, or oxygen less environment) that form a different form of rust, that doesn't flake off as easily, so it gives a measure of protection to the steel/iron underneath.

Potassium permanganate is a powerful oxidizer, and therefore dangerous. If you were to mix it with a fuel source, such as diesel, it could potentially autoignite. It will turn your hands a pretty shade of purple also, until it oxidizes your skin (burns), and turns brown. Sunlight will also cause it to breakdown and turn brown.

Brent Ashcraft

ashcraft, brent allen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Potassium permanganate is fun stuff. I got a hold of a bunch of it in 7th grade and layered it in a coffee can with other stuff like potassium nitrate and potassium chlorate to make a chemical volcano for a science project. The girls in the room thought they were going to see the old vinegar and baking soda deal and began hazing me, but then everyone clapped as this thing spewed thick ash and smoke and even gurgled green magma all over the face of my papier mache volcano. I got an A. Potassium permanganate if piled and ignited will burn like a mini volcano buy itself, throwing ash up into the air which settles back down around the base - very cool! Of course this was back in the days before you were labeled public threat/terrorist for learning about science first hand.

Grüße,

Daniel A. Wöhr aus Südtexas

"To the motivated go the spoils."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...