What was the "Best Deal" that you had on a purchased fossil?

[Bobby Rico]

On 29/12/2017 at 1:24 AM, Bobby Rico said:

I spotted that too . Great buy John and it goes great with your other footcast . 

@JohnBrewer I spotted another yesterday by I think the same vendor.

[Uncle Siphuncle]

I was happy to part with 4 Bennies for the mammoth stuff below.  The tooth in the jaw is 10" long.

[Nimravis]

10 minutes ago, Uncle Siphuncle said:

I was happy to part with 4 Bennies for the mammoth stuff below.  The tooth in the jaw is 10" long.

Nice- I would have also.

[aplomado]

I won a beautifully restored Oreodont upper skull on ebay auction (the yellow parts are restored) for around $70 shipped a few years ago... the seller had to pay $12 to ship it to me too.  It is a lovely skull.  He told me he did the prep himself.

[Bobby Rico]

@aplomado well that puts my Oreodont skull  to shame. Fantastic bargain. Looks nice displayed on the book too.

 

cheers Bobby 

[gigantoraptor]

This Selenopeltis longispinus was the best deal I ever had. I got this one for 17USD. These are way more rare then Selenopeltis buchii.

[Bobby Rico]

Great deal @gigantoraptor Selenopeltis longispinus I would be very happy with that buy too.

[aplomado]

19 hours ago, Bobby Rico said:

@aplomado well that puts my Oreodont skull  to shame. Fantastic bargain. Looks nice displayed on the book too.

 

cheers Bobby 

Thank you!  It's a pre-Civil War copy of Lyell's Elements of Geology, a textbook... found it in the free books box at my library! (good bargain too!)

[Pagurus]

2 hours ago, aplomado said:

found it in the free books box at my library!

 

I guess to many people it's just an old boring book with a torn cover. It's a bit of a treasure to the people here on TFF, which is one of the reasons I love this forum. What a great find. For free?!!! That's a terrific display you put together.

[jcbshark]

Like many on here I’m in it for the hunt and have only bought 2 pieces in my entire collection, one a little fish at the shark tooth festival in Venice and back in the day when I used to travel to sell my shark tooth jewelry I found this little posterior meg in a bowl full of tiger shark teeth. Being as it was mislabeled and one of my favorite species to collect I couldn’t pass it up for a buck 

[Runner64]

got this Allosaurus tooth which is around ~3 inches for $45.

[Bobby Rico]

I hope anybody does not mind me reposting this footcast here but after I thought about it . I think it is a great buy at the bargain price of £14 all-in. Also John has the right cast and a have the left cast.

 

Juvenile Herbivorou's Dinosaur Footcast  from Wealden , Sussex. U.K. 

 

 

[Cam28]

Good stuff so far

 

Swatara Cryptolithus trilobite, Gavialosuchus tooth, Morrocan Hemipristis curvatus teeth ($10 each?), all less than or equal to $50

 

edit: remembered I bought a perfect 2 5/8" Hastalis for $35 a few years back, probably my best deal imo

 

 

 

[Bobby Rico]

I came a cross this thread again and I thought a year on it would be good fun to revisit and recap the past years bargains. So I will add this coral the label said.

Devonian corals from Daddy Hole, Torquay coastline. UK. 

It was a bargain at £6 all in. I think it is Acervularia?

[gigantoraptor]

8 minutes ago, Bobby Rico said:

I came a cross this thread again and I thought a year on it would be good fun to revisit and recap the past years bargains.

Good idea to bring this one back up and beautifel coral also.

 

I had a couple of great deals this year but I think this was my best. 

This trilobite was sold as Cyphaspis boutscharafinense but it's Cyphaspis agayuara. C. boutscharafinense has a short axial spine but this one has a long one. The trilobite is 3.1 centimeters long and the axial spine is completely freestanding. I also think it's beautifel prepared. Got it for around 60 euros.

[Bobby Rico]

3 hours ago, gigantoraptor said:

Cyphaspis agayuara. C. boutscharafinense

Absolutely a bargain nice one. 

[steelhead9]

I once bought a lot of fossils in the good old days of THE auction site. Listed as part of this lot was "oreodon skull". I purchased the lot for $125, not for the oreodon, but for some of the other fossils that were included, and that far exceeded the cost. Imagine my surprise when I got to the bottom of the box and found that the "oreodon skull" was actually a 15" long promerycochoerus, the largest and one of the rarest oreodont skulls!

[Bobby Rico]

11 minutes ago, steelhead9 said:

oreodont skulls

Fantastic buy good on you. 

[Anomotodon]

My best deal is this amazing Hadrosaur ungual (claw) I got for 15$ on the auction site two months ago. It was sold as a ‘dinosaur bone fragment’ from Drumheller, Canada by a mineral dealer in US who got someone’s old collection and didn’t really know what it is. It is also huge compared to other unguals I have seen (almost 5”) and nicely preserved, although bottom side is unprepared. One of my favourite dinosaur pieces so far  

 

[Bobby Rico]

I know I shown it before but £12.50 is a good deal Edmontosaurus toe bone, Hell Creek FM

[gigantoraptor]

Okay, after looking at the fossils from the past year I have to change my mind on the best deal I did. 

There are two teeth from Ornitocheirds of the Kem Kem beds in the picture. The smallest one (3.5 cm) was a tooth I bought a while ago but the biggest is from this year. 

The new tooth is huge. It's 5.5 cm long and costed 40 euros, but now I can cheerfully say I own one of the biggest and best preserved pterosaur teeth I've ever seen. 

It was sold in February as Siroccopteryx moroccensis, but since the description of Coloborhynchus fluviferox in Oktober 2018 it's impossible to determine the species.

[Wrangellian]

Fun topic. Interesting to see what others think are great acquisitions and what they'll pay for them (if they're willing to divulge that).

I'd have to think about what my best score was, but lately I've been having trouble finding anything I want that doesn't go way beyond my budget. I would say it has become a seller's market, but maybe others would disagree, and maybe it's just that I've finished acquiring all the easy stuff and am trying for the hard-to-get stuff now. I will say that I've frequently seen nice things go for a song, even recently, but that never happens when I bid on them!

[Rob Russell]

I’ve been given a few fossils as gifts, and I’ve acquired a few fossils through trade.  However, after thirty five years of collecting, and with thousands of fossils in my collection, I’ve never purchased a single one. 

[Bobby Rico]

3 hours ago, Rob Russell said:

I’ve been given a few fossils as gifts, and I’ve acquired a few fossils through trade.  However, after thirty five years of collecting, and with thousands of fossils in my collection, I’ve never purchased a single one. 

This is not the right thread for you then. 

[Kane]

Most of my "best scores" come from those who are also collectors and preparators with whom I get to develop a rapport, which is nice and makes the transaction a bit more special. Sometimes that rapport results in being offered items off-list at a significantly reduced price, and particularly specimens I can prepare myself. 

 

The best score price-wise from a non-collector would be from the little village rock shop in my neighbourhood run by a very engaging couple. This large platycerid from Sylvania, Ohio ran me maybe five dollars: