Trilobite Purchase From Local Ohio Flea Market

[Kyleontheweb]

I found a nice Trilobite for sale this weekend at a local flea market. It is marked as being a phacops from Sylvania, OH. It's a nice looking specimen, and I only paid $6 for it. That makes two trilobites in my collection so far. Seemed like a good deal to me.

Here it is:

[Gatorman]

Very nice.

[geofossil]

Nice specimen. You can be confident calling it a 'Phacops'. Here's one of his cousins:

Phacops rana (crassituberculata)

[Guest solius symbiosus]

Nice Phacaps. I've heard that, anymore, the Sylvania site doesn't give up very many of those.

[Kyleontheweb]

Thanks all. I'm pretty happy with it.

Nice trilobite there, Geofossil.

Solius symbiosus, do you mean the Sylvania "Fossil Park" site? I had been considering whether or not I should take a trip all the way up there some day to check it out.

[Guest solius symbiosus]

Yeah, I'm thinking my paleo prof years ago told me that the site is well picked over, when I told her that I was thinking of making a trip there. She gave me some other locations, but I never made the trip, and the information is long forgot.

This is a Phacops that I found one day returning from my lunch break. I was driving back to the job, and saw an outcrop. I decided to do a preliminary look, and behold, as soon as I walked up the rocks, it was sitting there.

[Kyleontheweb]

Wow, awesome story. Maybe when I finally find my first self-located Trilobite, it will happen that way. LOL. I have been looking hard for one and can't find one. Maybe I should stop looking for them.

[Guest solius symbiosus]

Around here the whole ones are rare, but occasionally, when least expected, one pops up. I hunted an outcrop for years, and I would find pieces all the time, but never complete specimens.

On the other side of the road, there was a small outcrop that I never looked at. One day I decided to check it out. I spent about 10 minutes at the thing(it was very small), and was just about to leave, when I saw this little cutie hiding behind a Stromotoporoid.

It is a Gravicalymene truncatus(?) They are similar to the Flexis, but on the glabellar furrows on the Gravis, the tangential line is proximal to the sagittal plane. On the Flexis, it is distal.

[crinus]

Thanks all. I'm pretty happy with it.

Nice trilobite there, Geofossil.

Solius symbiosus, do you mean the Sylvania "Fossil Park" site? I had been considering whether or not I should take a trip all the way up there some day to check it out.

The Sylvania site is a series of quarries both abandoned and working. They have not let anyone into the quarries in years. If you could get in, it would be worth the trip. The "Fossil Park" is small fenced in area next to one of the abandoned quarries. It is designed for kid. Once a years, the working quarry will haul away last years scraps and dump a fresh load of rock. It is not designed for the serious collector, not that you couldn't find something if it were a fresh dump. It is really intended for kids. I would not make a trip to it and I only have 50 mile to get to the site.

Note: I still use Phacops for the Sylvania trilobites, as do many other collectors, but technically it is no longer correct. The name was changed several years ago to Eldredgeops (in honor of Dr. Niles Eldredge). I believe that Phacops in now restricted to a trilobite from NY.