Real or fake Keichousaurus

[clotarius]

Hello,

I found this in France in an antique market 15 years ago. At that time i thought it was fake but now?  extreme relief   20cm on 13cm

 

[oilshale]

Sorry, 100% fake!

[Misha]

They look fake, in my opinion.

[Wolf89]

Fake 

[daves64]

Air bubbles & mold artifacts / alignment pins. Both critters look to have come straight out of the mold & were then glued onto a flat piece of rock, as evidenced by the missing limb. Sorry.. 

[Bobby Rico]

I am really sorry but this is the first specimens that I have seen that is  completely in my opinion wrong.  If the op does not mind I think a lot can be learning from this post. I have add mine specimen for comparison it is 100% genuine.

if you are interested in buying fossil post on the forum first and we can give you some good advice . Try before you buy.

[Bguild]

I agree, these are crafted.

[snolly50]

I am surprised that someone would take the time and trouble to fabricate such a common fossil. The poster says it was acquired 15 years ago, so it has some age. Is the keich bounty/availability a fairly recent phenomenon, That is, in relatively recent times would a specimen have been a novelty worthy of crafting?

[Fossildude19]

 

 

[oilshale]

1 hour ago, snolly50 said:

I am surprised that someone would take the time and trouble to fabricate such a common fossil. The poster says it was acquired 15 years ago, so it has some age. Is the keich bounty/availability a fairly recent phenomenon, That is, in relatively recent times would a specimen have been a novelty worthy of crafting?

 

Especially this arrangement - two Keichousaurus crossed with the tails - is very popular in China ("eternal love")
I have seen dozens of these pieces in Shanghai.
The labor costs in China are very low - the mass production (and these fakes were produced in large quantities) is always cheaper.

Another fake:

 

 

If you take a closer look at the outlines of the right Keichousaurus you will notice fine shrinkage cracks and beginning delamination around the glued on "skeleton".

[snolly50]

52 minutes ago, oilshale said:

Especially this arrangement - two Keichousaurus crossed with the tails - is very popular in China ("eternal love")
I have seen dozens of these pieces in Shanghai.
The labor costs in China are very low - the mass production (and these fakes were produced in large quantities) is always cheaper.

Another fake:

Thanks, fascinating insight into the cultural significance re: crossed tails. I had not considered mass production. I had envisioned a lone craftsman spending a fair amount of time on the production. However, your comments make a great deal of sense in explaining the presence of these ersatz fossils.  

[clotarius]

thank you for your answers and excuse my english. I thought it was possible but very rare that a fossils could rest on a hard surface when he dies instead of been surounded by sediment and in that casse just covered. he was very durty with a lot of durt and dust ( i cleaned it) so i thought it was a very old copy at that time. like snolly50 after years i wandered and look closer the fossils and when i realize how well it was made (texture, mold of each peace, assemble perfectly) i thought why spend so much time to make such a copy like this for it is much simple to carve and paint for a better and faster production.  i'm a antique dealer so i'm use to analyse object's even if i have very little knowlege on fossils and this one is realy a beautiful copy. the dealer didn't know what it was and i spend just a very few euros to have it.

[clotarius]

normely a copy is suposse to look like as close as possible of a real one. why use a total different way to do it, instead of carving and paint that ends to be very different from the vast majority of real one. could fossilisation environement and way of deposol make possible to have no footprint on the matrix . excuse me i dont have the right word in english

[Pemphix]

These are no casts from an original specimen - too much anatomical "failures" for that (pectoral girdle, pelvis, tail/neck, arm/leg...) imo.

See original anatomy here: https://archive.org/details/functionalmorpho39link

Interesting to see, that obviously the production of fakes is done with a high count since these little critters are quite common finds...

 

 

[Bobby Rico]

17 hours ago, clotarius said:

it is much simple to carve

I would say it is harder to carve one specimen than to make multiple  assemblages out of some sort of cast material. 

[Pemphix]

21 hours ago, Bobby Rico said:

I would say it is harder to carve one specimen than to make multiple  assemblages out of some sort of cast material. 

I agree to that.

[steelhead9]

This of course screams fake, but looking closely I am not 100% sure of this. Rather it might be a real specimen that was way overprepped with acid. I say this is possible because of the brown matrix around the bones. I have seen some keichousaurs that have this soft brown layer on top of the harder grey shale, often containing the actual bones. The closeups reveal the brown matrix to be be so tight to the bones I do not know how you could fake this. Also, the missing leg indicates an area where the brown matrix separated, taking the bones with it. Over use of acid could have removed significant portions of the bone, resulting in the sparse, fake apearance. Very easy to determine the truth. Use a pin vice or needle and try to remove a small amount of brown matrix next to the bone. If there is black bone under the matrix, it is real. Must admit the positions are too good to be true, but just sayin...

[Crazyhen]

This is a fake specimen of Keichousaurus.  Poorly made to look like two mating Keichousaurus.  Anatomically this fake was poorly made too.