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My most favorite fish fossil!!!


RJB

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  My kids were purty darn young when we, as a family, started going places to hunt for fossils.  Back then, about 20 some years ago, I found that one could go fossil fish hunting with a company called Uricks Quarrys. Not sure of the spelling.   It cost $65 for 3 hours of digging.  For me, back then, that was a heck of alot of money.  They told me that you get 3 hours of digging, then back to their shop for cutting and squaring up the rock.  Well, I got there one morning and off we were.  There must have been 10 or 12 people there and after a short bit of what to do, we all got to work.  Like most everyone there, we were finding all the small stuff, the Knightia's the small Dyplo's and then all of a sudden, the guy tells us its time to pack up and go!   NO, No, No I thougt to myself,  we still have an hour to go.  I simply kept on picking up rock and splittin.  Almost everyone else was packed up and ready to go when this guy keeps telling me that its time to go.  I kept on diggin.  Just when the guy starts getting demanding of its 'time to go', I run into this big freakin beauty!!!   This was my very first ever big fish!!!  I was super happy and super excited!!!  To say the least!!!   Then, I was willing to go.  Everyone else was ready to go, all packed up and sittin in the two vans.  I didnt care, I wanted my 3 hours of digging for cryin out loud!!!    After we got back home, the first thing I wanted to do was to start prepping.  Mind you, I had never prepped fossil fish before and there was one piece of rock that came off that had a big piece of tail in it.  This was my first ever 'bone transfer'  and it came out perfect!!!  I was absolutley amazed that I could do this!!!???  Learning sometimes is a bit scary!  Once I had this fish all prepped out, I decided to build a frame for it.  and of course, I cant do anything simple.  I didnt have any money for materials, so I used common everyday fir 2X4's for the frame.  I thinned them down and made a frame and stained  it with cherry colored stain.  Then I realised that I had some left over mohogany.  so, with some thought, I added some of that and put some carvings into it adn also some burning into it too.  The only thing I didnt do was to put the Genus and species of this fish onto a carved area on the bottom.  I simply didnt know the name in those days and was too excited to get it done.  But still, my most favorite and memerable fish still today.   I love this fish.  Brings back some very nice memories. 

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It is alwasy nice to have finds like that!

My first memorable fish find was an Amphiplaga brachyptera.

It is the fish I use on my website and still sits in my office as a reminder of my first fish dig.

 

By the way the place is called Ulrich's ;) (pronounced ul-rick-s)

 

They operate a tourist dig in the split fish layers and an 18" inch layer dig on land that they lease from the BLM.

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Hey Blake, I quit digging at Ulricks with just two trips under my belt and ran into other guys who also had fish quarrys and never went back. 

 

RB

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1 hour ago, RJB said:

Hey Blake, I quit digging at Ulricks with just two trips under my belt and ran into other guys who also had fish quarrys and never went back. 

 

RB

 

That is a story I have heard repeated a couple of times!

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Yeah, ive heard the same thing over the years.  I wont say why, but Im sure you know why. Ulrick is gone but my buddy Mike is running the place now.   Lots of other really good quarrys out there.  here is one I found at one of the Tysnky quarrys many years ago.  Took some major prep, but came out quite nice!!

 

RB

Diplo1C.jpg

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That is a great piece!

Love the tail on that guy!

Very minor scale peel and great consistent colour. Can't ask for much more than that!

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What a story! This fossil is priceless for the memories it bring.

 

And it's an awesome looking fish too.

Looking forward to meeting my fellow Singaporean collectors! Do PM me if you are a Singaporean, or an overseas fossil-collector coming here for a holiday!

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Thank you folks for all the compliments.  To me the frame looks a bit amaturish, but its what I did back then and Im not going to replace it.  Seems like the fish and the frame belong together now.

 

RB

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  • 3 weeks later...

Ah RB man .. this is so fossil hunting & collecting! Thanks for sharing that!

 

Love the way how you kept fine tuning your hobby and passion all these years since then...

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