Sometimes it helps not to be too stubborn about the authenticity of your fossils

[-Andy-]

Well, I sure feel like a nitwit!

Remember this topic I made, about how it's wise not to throw away your supposedly-fake fossil, because even the experts can get it wrong? > http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/57593-this-is-why-you-shouldnt-discard-your-fossils-even-if-they-are-supposedly-fake/

Guess what? You guys were right all along - It IS a fake, or at least, the root is.

So for 2 years I've been trying to ID the tooth. It looks like the crown of a croc, yet has a full root. I asked the seller, but he was adamant it was a real tooth. I checked with several other experts, and a taxidermist. After handling it, all confirmed my tooth and root was real. Hence, despite Thomas Kapitany, Nate Curtis and you guys telling me otherwise, I was convinced mine was real. Still, I just couldn't lock it down to a species. Was it tiger? Croc? Pinniped? Whale?

Then a group of big cat fans messaged me, asking for info on my tooth, e.g. weight, length... They did a lot of calculations, cross-section fitting of my tooth into tiger jaws etc, and came to the conclusion mine was the fabled lost canine of the Ngandong Tiger.

As a collector, I was more than happy to accept that ID. For months, I was happily ignorant. But I couldn't ignore my nagging suspicions this tooth isn't what it appears to be. I went online to search, and what do you know? I found 6 other Java teeth like mine, all ID-ed as tiger. I have 2 teeth, and my friend has 3, that means all 11 of these teeth that are known online are fully-rooted. Let that sink in a moment. Fully-rooted teeth are rare in the fossil record, and now 11 out of 11 have that? Not likely at all. I tried looking for instances with partial roots, or broken ones but there were none. Here's an album compilation of the 11 teeth > http://imgur.com/a/hhWcC

As it turns out, the Javanese really like tiger. I found 4 Indonesian seller marketing croc teeth as tiger ones. Thomas Kapitany also revealed to me they've been faking fossils for decades.

I broke my smaller tooth apart, this is what I saw > http://imgur.com/a/4F8iJ

Let me say first the Javanese are darn good at faking this. I thought I knew plenty about Moroccan and Chinese fake fossils, but this one just threw me off utterly. I will relabel my smaller tooth crown as a croc, and the big one will stay as it is - a reminder to myself to be neutral when it comes to ID-ing a fossil; I was so biased towards tiger that I failed to see all the red flags.

Too often, the problem many of us is that a collector refuses to acknowledge when he has a misidentified fossils (e.g. a concretion instead of an egg, rugosa coral instead of teeth). I happened to be one of them. Sometimes, the experts really do know better

[Raggedy Man]

You saw what they wanted you to see. But being objective and keeping an open mind, allowed you to collect additional information in which confirmed your suspicions. Most people would have been happy with the ID. Knowing is always better than choosing to be ignorant.

Best regards,

Paul

Edited January 15, 2016 by Raggedy Man

[fossilized6s]

Wow! And here I thought this was settled. Haha! Thanks for your detective work and letting us know about these being faked. They sure do a very good job.

[Troodon]

Ha ha thought I had seen the last of this tooth but good detective job and now you finally have your answer. Not surprised anymore with this outcome. You just have to be very objective with everything you are looking at especially those one-off or unique specimens.

[Auspex]

Very well done, Andy!

[Pumpkinhead]

I know how you feel. When I was really young I found a nice really high spired gastropod and thought that it was a straight shelled ceph, which wasn't bad for an 8 year old. But a lot of people told me it was a gastropod and I haven't admitted it myself until recently. I even have it posted somewhere on the forum here as a Silurian straight shelled ceph, but Iv'e kept it here to remind myself to always be objective.

Some great detective work you've shown and an even greater learning experience. Thanks for sharing

[mushroommg]

A very valuable lesson to me. Thanks for sharing Andy!