Dinosaur egg from Ganzhou

[Crazyhen]

Is this egg genuine? Full shell?

[Tidgy's Dad]

The only red flag for me would be that I can't see any red flags! 

That's a beauty! 

I think it's real, but almost too perfect! 

Let's see what the experts say......................

[Pemphix]

On the first view it looks good, some parts of the shell are missing, but surface looks quite authentic to me.

Curious what the "eggsperts" will tell....

A "Wowser" if authentic ! 

[HamptonsDoc]

Looks good. Nicely inflated. The prep job is strange though- looks like they took grey putty and filled in cracks and areas with missing shell.  Not sure how much shell is actually present due to areas smeared with the grey stuff but I’d say at least 2/3rds. 

 

I love the shape and inflation but personally don’t like the prep. I prefer missing areas of shell to stay misssing, showing matrix underneath but it is a personal choice and overall I think it’s a nice egg that would stand out in any collection. 

[Seguidora-de-Isis]

Like our friend HamptonsDoc, I could not help but notice that a strange mass of gray color is present in some areas of the egg:

 

 

These areas that I highlighted in red are, in my opinion, the most obvious, but the fact is that unfortunately the egg is full of these areas...

 

And I'm not too accustomed to this type of preparation either. I am more familiar with the traditional preparation where the spaces in which the shells are absent, allow us to visualize the matrix. Like this egg, for example, that is deposited in my private collection;

 

 

And perhaps this type of preparation is a disaster here, because it prevents us from visualizing the coloration of the matrix sand, whether it is whitish, dark gray sands or red, because it is precisely with the coloration of the sand that we could try to give a guess to which group the egg could belong. But of course, fossil preparation is always a personal taste that will depend on each person.

 

But yes, my dear friend @Crazyhen, you definitely have in your hand an authentic, probably carnivorous but unfortunately undetermined dinosaur egg. Apparently it's at least 65 or 70% complete (I just will not increase the percentage due to areas that I can not see due to gray mass), what is rare these days find for sale, with so many collectors eggmaniacs...  It's an egg worthy of being placed in the best place on the collection shelf!

 

Another point I found in the least curious is that a strange bright / transparent film runs through your egg...  If your egg was prepared with a layer of Paraloid, then no problem, since in my opinion it is a valid preparation and that provides excellent conservation for fossil eggs, but if your egg is wet to highlight the shells structures, then I recommend taking extreme care, some sand matrices may be hydrophillic, thus the egg can be undone in pure sludge with loose shells and scattered! A friend of mine has already lost a beautiful "Segnosaur" egg washing it. And now he just has the shells as a snarge memory he'd like to forget...

 

Our friend @-Andy-, maybe if he is not too busy frying eggs , can also help.

 

 

[-Andy-]

It does look to be a genuine egg with good shell coverage. I think it's missing a bit of shell on top, but it doesn't take away from the egg; I would be more suspicious of a 100% completed theropod egg. I agree with Jason the prep is strange. Can we see some better photos of the top of the egg?

[Crazyhen]

Thanks all for your expert views.  Unfortunately that are all the photos I got.  The seller said that no repair work was done to the egg.

[Seguidora-de-Isis]

3 hours ago, Crazyhen said:

Thanks all for your expert views.  Unfortunately that are all the photos I got.  The seller said that no repair work was done to the egg.

 

In this case, I do not rule out the possibility that this strange mass of gray coloration is nothing more than a sudden change in the mineral coloration, and perhaps this is the case here. But be careful, if this egg was not prepared, then this means that it really was wet, which may have triggered a reaction that could later cause serious inconvenience. If buying, try to make sure the matrix rock can be hydrophillic or not and whether the egg is well stabilized.