Another Fake Jaw from Morocco

[LordTrilobite]

So this jaw is being sold as a rare museum quality Hadrosaur jaw. As many of you probably already know, this is a typical fake Mosasaur jaw from Morocco. So it really has nothing to do with any Hadrosaurs. But I think it still deserves to be said that no one should buy these types of fakes jaws thinking they are real. Always be careful when buying any type of fossil, especially fossils from Morocco and China, as those are very often faked.

 

[Troodon]

Good reminder and the auction sites are full of these Jaws now that folks are returning home from the Tucson show.  In addition I'm seeing lots of Frankenstein skulls that you should stay clear off.

 

 

 

[RJB]

Lots of fakes at the Quartzite shows too. 

 

RB

[LiamL]

2 hours ago, RJB said:

Lots of fakes at the Quartzite shows too. 

 

RB

Do sellers at shows advertise them as replica? I'd imagine they'd be called out if spotted selling fakes as real at shows.

[Troodon]

3 hours ago, LiamL said:

Do sellers at shows advertise them as replica? I'd imagine they'd be called out if spotted selling fakes as real at shows.

At big shows like the Tuscon one they are just put out on tables and nothing is said or advertised.  I think a lot of buyers know what they are getting.   If asked I think the sellers will use the appropriate weasel words to get around a direct its fake answer.  At local shows or online I think is where the real deception occurs. 

 

I made this comment in my Tucson posts when asked if sellers know what they are selling:

Yes they are very aware of what they are.  I posted this from a previous show from a different venue: "I overheard following comment to a dealer buying and the trader said while chuckling " I know they are fake but boy do they sell" "

 

 

[RyanDye]

43 minutes ago, Troodon said:

At big shows like the Tuscon one they are just put out on tables and nothing is said or advertised.  I think a lot of buyers know what they are getting.   If asked I think the sellers will use the appropriate weasel words to get around a direct its fake answer.  At local shows or online I think is where the real deception occurs. 

 

I made this comment in my Tucson posts when asked if sellers know what they are selling:

Yes they are very aware of what they are.  I posted this from a previous show from a different venue: "I overheard following comment to a dealer buying and the trader said while chuckling " I know they are fake but boy do they sell" "

 

 

Wow, giving a real insiders look on all these fakes; thanks for sharing troodon. The fake of this post is particularly easy to identify as one, hopefully we can continue to educate people on how to see what they're actually buying.  

Edited February 22, 2018 by RyanDye
Grammatical error

[Seguidora-de-Isis]

1 hour ago, Troodon said:

Yes they are very aware of what they are.  I posted this from a previous show from a different venue: "I overheard following comment to a dealer buying and the trader said while chuckling " I know they are fake but boy do they sell" "

 

Many sellers make this kind of comment when they know that the customer has some sense of what is true and what is false ... But many sellers are usually quiet when some new buyer appears, and this bothers me a lot! For I have seen cases of buyers who have discovered that they have been deceived, and then announce the "specimen" as authentic, only to recover the money. And so, ignorance turns into an endless vicious circle.

 

By the way, here is the super novelty 2017/2018:

 

 

Do not miss this opportunity to get a full rare "Enchodus" "jaw" right now for your collection!

 

[Kane]

The owner of a rock shop in my neighbourhood only recently discovered that his mo-jaw was a composite as he was not up on identifying authentic jaws. Like many such as this person who also sells crystals and minerals plucked from big shows, he could not be faulted as being deceptive. However, since he discovered the truth, he has changed his in-store tag to say that it is a composite.  

[SULLY]

That's some funny stuff!

[caldigger]

"Museum quality"...ya, Ripley's Believe it or Not museum!!!!

[Tidgy's Dad]

6 hours ago, Kane said:

The owner of a rock shop in my neighbourhood only recently discovered that his mo-jaw was a composite as he was not up on identifying authentic jaws. Like many such as this person who also sells crystals and minerals plucked from big shows, he could not be faulted as being deceptive. However, since he discovered the truth, he has changed his in-store tag to say that it is a composite.  

Same with a chap in Spain I told exactly the same , he also now has it labelled as "Real teeth set in a reproduction jaw". There are honest guys out there.   

[Seguidora-de-Isis]

8 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Same with a chap in Spain I told exactly the same , he also now has it labelled as "Real teeth set in a reproduction jaw". There are honest guys out there.   

 

I am hoping that in a few weeks, when he thinks you have already forgotten this, he will not again modify the ad to: "100% Real Jaw - Museum Quality".

 

I've seen it happen!

 

But I do not wish to judge the seller here. Many of them are really honest, but they often advertise what they do not understand.

[Tidgy's Dad]

Just now, Seguidora-de-Isis said:

 

I am hoping that in a few weeks, when he thinks you have already forgotten this, he will not again modify the ad to: "100% Real Jaw - Museum Quality".

 

I've seen it happen!

I believe you! 

But not this guy. After I told him, it was three months before i went back and it had the new label on. Hadn't sold it, though. 

[Seguidora-de-Isis]

18 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

I believe you! 

But not this guy. After I told him, it was three months before i went back and it had the new label on. Hadn't sold it, though. 

 

And I believe in you my big friend! Because there really are still good sellers out there !

 

Now, you see, for now, this is the new 2018 launch from Indonesia...

 

 

I wonder what would happen if other countries, rich in fossil teeth of sharks like the United States and Morocco decide to join this fashion!

 

In this case, we'll have something unforgettable for the next Tucson Show!

[Tidgy's Dad]

9 hours ago, Seguidora-de-Isis said:

 

And I believe in you my big friend! Because there really are still good sellers out there !

 

Now, you see, for now, this is the new 2018 launch from Indonesia...

 

 

I wonder what would happen if other countries, rich in fossil teeth of sharks like the United States and Morocco decide to join this fashion!

 

In this case, we'll have something unforgettable for the next Tucson Show!

That's horrible. 

But somebody will buy it and probably be happy in their ignorance forever. 

[Auspex]

On 2/22/2018 at 9:01 AM, LordTrilobite said:

So this jaw is being sold as a rare museum quality Hadrosaur jaw. As many of you probably already know, this is a typical fake Mosasaur jaw from Morocco. So it really has nothing to do with any Hadrosaurs. But I think it still deserves to be said that no one should buy these types of fakes jaws thinking they are real. Always be careful when buying any type of fossil, especially fossils from Morocco and China, as those are very often faked.

 

 

 

 

We received an anonymous report on this post, apparently by the seller:

Guest

 

Report submitted 31 minutes ago

HI everyone. As you see this is a negative OPINION. Person has no history of my fossil  ie: where was it purchased , from whom it was purchased and better yet the actual jaw in hand. So laughing at you for trying to slam us. Hope everyone has a great day!

So, hoping that he might see this, I reply here that it is obvious that his 'specimen' is a fabrication, and a poor one at that. The tooth crowns are real, but that's all. Selling it as a decorative composite artwork would be fine, but offering it as wholly genuine is fraud.
If you're reading this, he-who-shall-remain-nameless,  consider yourself fortunate that we do not name names.

[Aurelius]

22 minutes ago, Auspex said:

We received an anonymous report on this post, apparently by the seller:

Guest

 

Report submitted 31 minutes ago

HI everyone. As you see this is a negative OPINION. Person has no history of my fossil  ie: where was it purchased , from whom it was purchased and better yet the actual jaw in hand. So laughing at you for trying to slam us. Hope everyone has a great day!

So, hoping that he might see this, I reply here that it is obvious that his 'specimen' is a fabrication, and a poor one at that. The tooth crowns are real, but that's all. Selling it as a decorative composite artwork would be fine, but offering it as wholly genuine is fraud.
If you're reading this, he-who-shall-remain-nameless,  consider yourself fortunate that we do not name names.

That's hilarious. I can't imagine how much nerve you'd require to even pretend that this junk piece is a museum quality Hadrosaur jaw to begin with, let alone to complain to a bunch of experts to insist that it's so.

[LordTrilobite]

14 minutes ago, Auspex said:

 

 

 

We received an anonymous report on this post, apparently by the seller:

Guest

 

Report submitted 31 minutes ago

HI everyone. As you see this is a negative OPINION. Person has no history of my fossil  ie: where was it purchased , from whom it was purchased and better yet the actual jaw in hand. So laughing at you for trying to slam us. Hope everyone has a great day!

So, hoping that he might see this, I reply here that it is obvious that his 'specimen' is a fabrication, and a poor one at that. The tooth crowns are real, but that's all. Selling it as a decorative composite artwork would be fine, but offering it as wholly genuine is fraud.
If you're reading this, he-who-shall-remain-nameless,  consider yourself fortunate that we do not name names.

Since I made the original post claiming the fossil is a fake, I'd like to take this opportunity and elaborate in case the seller does read this.

Yes I agree with Auspex that the 'specimen' is a fabrication. But we do not know the motivations of the seller and it might just be honest ignorance. And just saying something is obvious might not help at all. So I will explain my reasoning and hope that it is informative, be it to the seller or someone else.

 

My goal in making the original post was to educate and inform people. No I have not purchased this "fossil" or held it in my hands. And yes you could say it is my opinion that it is a really bad fake. But it is an informed opinion based on years of experience. I've been collecting fossils for almost two decades now and have held and prepped many of both mosasaur and hadrosaur fossils. And of course this forum contains a wealth of information and many, many experienced people with just as much or much more experience. And if I make a mistake in identifying a certain fossil, I would love to hear it so that I can learn more.

 

It's been a long time since I made a post on the listing of the fossil. But as I stated, it was being sold as a hadrosaur jaw. Hadrosaurs are reasonably common dinosaurs in the Americas and it's quite often that one can see fossils for sale on the market of these animals. However, the specimen shown in the photo does not match any type of hadrosaur jaw in any way. Hadrosaurs are herbivores with sets of dental batteries where the teeth interlock closely to form one solid grinding surface. Most hadrosaur jaws being sold often also don't have their teeth any more since these often fall out. The jaws of hadrosaurs are also pretty stout and have a gentle curve. In the photo we see a "jaw" that is quite slender with pointed teeth and lots of space between said teeth. None of these features come even close to that of what one would expect of a hadrosaur. So it's 100% not a jaw of a hadrosaur.

 

It does however share some characteristics with that of mosasaur jaws. I have a few mosasaur jaws and lots of loose teeth in my collection. Being aquatic giant predatory lizards, they have pointed conical teeth with cutting edges that are sometimes serrated and recurved in some species. Mosasaurs are among the most common vertebrate fossils on the market because they are being dug in in the thousands from Morocco. The sediment is quite characteristic with it's soft beige greyish tone. The sediment is generally quite soft and often the bones are in fairly good condition. So they make for popular and affordable fossils. The teeth visible here in the photo do closely match what we'd expect from a mosasaur. The sediment looks the same as that I've spent hundreds of hours looking at from under a microscope when prepping my mosasaur fossils. So are these mosasaur jaw pieces then? No, not exactly. And this is where we run into real problems.

 

So it kinda looks like a Moroccan mosasaur jaw. The problem is that Morocco has a gigantic industry of producing fake fossils that are exported all over the world. These fakes range from the ugliest horrible monstrosities to actually quite good fakes. I've fallen to some composite mosasaur jaws myself a few times. Thinking I bought a mosasaur tooth with a nice root attached to it, only to discover that the "root" was a random piece of bone glued to a real mosasaur tooth. But a few of these missteps can be very educational. Most of these widespread fakes however are pretty easy to spot, if you know what to look for. Generally there's a typical type of fake we see often on forums like this. The common but nice real mosasaur teeth are excavated and placed in a real local rock sediment, random pieces of bone are filed down and placed in an arrangement so that it all looks like a real jaw and the gaps are filled in with glue and local sand. This practice is so common, once you know what to look for, you'll see these buggers pop up everywhere.

 

And the "fossil" in the photo I posted before falls in this same category. Real mosasaur teeth (because it's not worth faking the common teeth) with random pieces of bone place in real local Moroccan sediment. There are a few key things to look for when spotting a fake like this.

- The teeth are too spaced out and too regular. Mosasaurs led violent lives and as reptiles the lost their teeth repeatedly. These also grew back, but it often leaves a real jaw a bit of a mess with teeth of different sizes and in different stages of growth. We generally don't see this in the typical fakes.

- The arrangement of the jaw bones is too neat. The jaws look to be nicely arranged with nothing overlapping. Real fossils are often a mess. Remember that these were animals that once lived and a lot can happen after an animal dies. Corpses get scavenged, bones get moved around. Nature isn't neat like that.

- The jaws are too thin and featureless. Real jaw bones don't just have teeth on them, they also have sensory pits, muscle attachments etc.

- The sediment is too smooth and featureless. This is a clear artifact of there being tampering done with the piece. It seems likely that glue mixed with sand was smeared on it to hide imperfections. Real sediment from this area often has all sorts of "junk" in it. Mosasaurs aren't the only fossils found in the same area, as real mosasaur jaws and bones are almost always accompanied by fish bones and shark teeth. These assemblages are generally packed with small fossils.

- The "jaws" show some weird blotches and discolouration. Real jaws will have a more uniform light beige or even white colour. This discolouration is a clear indication of the random bones + glue and sand being jammed together to form something that vaguely resembles a jaw.

 

This great photo from Fossilera.com shows pretty well how generic most of these fake mosasaur jaws look. A quick Google search yielded this and many other photos. So, to come back to what I said originally: Once you know what to look for, it is actually very obvious that it concerns a fake composite jaw.

 

So this post turned out a little longer than I anticipated. I hope it helps.