Really faked?

[Vertebrate]

Hello Fossil Forum,

 

on the German version of our favorite auction site I found something strange. It’s a theropod tooth which looks to me like a tyrannosaurid tooth from Hell Creek formation. Nothing special so far but that the seller claims it’s an exceptionally well made replica! Is that possible?! If so, I feel no longer able to tell a real from a fake tooth. It would be the best tooth replica I’ve ever seen. How could the serration and enamel be faked so well? But if it’s real, why would the seller claim it’s not? Any opinions? I’m not planning to buy it, just curious...

 

Regards,

Vertebrate

[LordTrilobite]

Real.

[gigantoraptor]

Real tooth. Nice serrations and enamel. 

[Abstraktum]

I've seen this tooth as well. I belive that the seller put on a wrong description.

The price is WAY to high for a simple replica.

 

Too bad the pictures are kind of blurry. Only the two closeup pictures form the tip a more or less clearly visible.

[Tidgy's Dad]

It's an absolutely amazing job if it is a copy. 

 

[Vertebrate]

Phew, I'm actually glad to hear it's real. Otherwise would have been scary  

[snolly50]

Given the close-up images, if that tooth is a man-made item; I'm giving up on trying to judge fossil authenticity.

[Pemphix]

1 hour ago, snolly50 said:

Given the close-up images, if that tooth is a man-made item; I'm giving up on trying to judge fossil authenticity.

Indeed !

Real tooth IMO - but judging just from these photos...Closer look and the weight of it would tell the truth...

[RJB]

I would say to "hurry up and buy it"!  

 

RB

[DeepTimeIsotopes]

That’s one splendid replica if it is. You’d almost basically have to do some destructive testing if they got the weight right. I’ll be exclusively collecting my own fossils in the field when the day comes that replicas are this detailed.

[Bobby Rico]

I would purchase that if it is priced as a replica. This year I purchased on our favourite auction site a beautiful Edmontosaurus toe bone, Hell Creek FM. The sellers photos was not great and blurry. So you could not be 100% sure it was not a replica. They said it was a replica  in the  description . I emailed them and asked why they thought it was a replica. They replied they didn’t know and in stead of sellling it as real the called it a replica to be safe. I thought I would risk it and won it for £12.50. Top notch fossil and worth a lot more.

[Seguidora-de-Isis]

Yes, it is not a replica. It's real! I'm sorry, but this tooth in no way came from Hell Creek Formation. It is a typical tooth from Kem Kem Beds in Morocco, and apparently is a Carcharodontosaurid tooth. Carcharodontosaurus saharicus?

 

Below, by way of comparison, I show a Carcharodontosaurid tooth that is deposited in my private collection compared to your tooth:

 

 

In addition, some red areas make me think of Kem Kem beds:

 

 

It's not just you, because it happened to me, too, and it seems strange things happen in Germany all the time. In the past year, on our favorite auction site, I found a German ad with the following description:

 

"Fossiler Spinosaurus - Mit selbst zugefugten Bitemarks. Der Zahn ist aus Marokko wie fast alles aus der region, wahrscheinlich zusammengefugt".

 

"That is, tooth with bite marks made by man and probably a composition, as everything is in that region (Kem Kem)".

 

 

 

 

But to my delight, when the tooth came here at my home, I could see that the tooth was 100% genuine and it was not a composition.

 

So I get the impression that many sellers do not want to fool anyone, so when these sellers are not sure, they'd rather say it's a replica, or a compound. Such attitudes of sellers are rare these days.

[gigantoraptor]

44 minutes ago, Seguidora-de-Isis said:

I'm sorry, but this tooth in no way came from Hell Creek Formation. It is a typical tooth from Kem Kem Beds in Morocco, and apparently is a Carcharodontosaurid tooth.

This is interesting. Why can't it be Hell Creek? It seems to have a differt preservation than I'm used to from the Kem Kem Beds.

 

I think it's a Tyrannosaurid tooth. Here is it compared to a tooth of Troodon from the Hell Creek formation.

 

[Seguidora-de-Isis]

1 hour ago, gigantoraptor said:

This is interesting. Why can't it be Hell Creek? It seems to have a differt preservation than I'm used to from the Kem Kem Beds.

 

I think it's a Tyrannosaurid tooth. Here is it compared to a tooth of Troodon from the Hell Creek formation.

 

Some Kem Kem Beds teeth are dark and may be perfectly confused with the teeth found in Hell Creek Formation. Below is an example of a Carcharodontosaurid tooth from the Kem Kem Beds:

 

 

I do not think it's a tooth of a Tyrannosaurid:

 

 

But I do not rule out that the difference in curvature may be due to positional differences of the teeth.

 

The Theropod teeth I know from the Hell Creek-Lance Fm are not typically that wide and thin.  In addition, I believe it is a Carcharodontosaurid due to the fact that the tooth appears to be quite flattened with has the typical half D shape.  But only with these photos, unfortunately we can not be sure. 

 

The serration count and better photos are needed to rule out the possibility of the Kem Kem Beds, which in my opinion, for now, can not be ruled out.

[TyBoy]

My vote is that its a North American Tyrannosaurid but a photo of the base would help in the determination if its a replica.   The preservation is typical of other HC teeth Ive seen as well as Judith River.  Unfortunately if the seller believes its a replica knowing a specific locality where it was found would be out of the question.  

[Seguidora-de-Isis]

26 minutes ago, TyBoy said:

My vote is that its a North American Tyrannosaurid but a photo of the base would help in the determination if its a replica.   The preservation is typical of other HC teeth Ive seen as well as Judith River.  Unfortunately if the seller believes its a replica knowing a specific locality where it was found would be out of the question.  

 

Actually I do not want to prove my theory, it's just speculation. And I hope it's a Tyrannosaurid tooth from Hell Creek formation, and that would be very interesting! The serration count and better photos would be very good here so we can be sure.

[Abstraktum]

3 hours ago, Seguidora-de-Isis said:

It's not just you, because it happened to me, too, and it seems strange things happen in Germany all the time. In the past year, on our favorite auction site, I found a German ad with the following description:

 

"Fossiler Spinosaurus - Mit selbst zugefugten Bitemarks. Der Zahn ist aus Marokko wie fast alles aus der region, wahrscheinlich zusammengefugt".

 

"That is, tooth with bite marks made by man and probably a composition, as everything is in that region (Kem Kem)".

 

 

Well year, this is a weird country to begin with  

 

But I'm having a little trouble with the translation. 

 

I would translate it to this:

"Fossil Spinosaurus - with self-inflicted bitemarks. The tooth is from Morocco and, like most stuff from there, a composition."

 

There is nothing with "made by man" in the german sentence.

You can read it like the Spino itself did it ("selbst zugefügt" is best translated with self-inflicted). 

Like the Spino did it to himself (while eating?, as in feeding damage).

You would need a little more context to see what he really meant. 

 

Writen like this there are two ways to read it:

 

1. I (the seller) did the bitemarks by myself to the tooth

2. The Spino did it.

 

"Selbst" is like myself. So the bitemarks could only be done by the seller himself or the Spino itself. 

 

I would ready it like feeding damage to the tooth. I can't really imagine the seller biting the tooth 

 

 

 

 

Oh and btw the tooth from this topic is no longer for sale.

 

So who of you did buy it? 

[Seguidora-de-Isis]

34 minutes ago, Abstraktum said:

 

Well year, this is a weird country to begin with  

 

But I'm having a little trouble with the translation. 

 

I would translate it to this:

"Fossil Spinosaurus - with self-inflicted bitemarks. The tooth is from Morocco and, like most stuff from there, a composition."

 

There is nothing with "made by man" in the german sentence.

You can read it like the Spino itself did it ("selbst zugefügt" is best translated with self-inflicted). 

Like the Spino did it to himself (while eating?, as in feeding damage).

You would need a little more context to see what he really meant. 

 

Writen like this there are two ways to read it:

 

1. I (the seller) did the bitemarks by myself to the tooth

2. The Spino did it.

 

"Selbst" is like myself. So the bitemarks could only be done by the seller himself or the Spino itself. 

 

I would ready it like feeding damage to the tooth. I can't really imagine the seller biting the tooth 

 

 

 

 

Oh and btw the tooth from this topic is no longer for sale.

 

So who of you did buy it? 

 

The problem is that the only description that the seller made this tooth was exactly what I transcrivi here. So I figured if Spino could not inflict damage on himself (except getting hurt while feeding), then automatically by eliminating odds, and without any context, I deduced that the damage to the tooth was made by the man ... Hahahahahaha.

Here is the full description of the announcement, my dear German friend @Abstraktum:

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

I bite myself whilst feeding quite a lot. 

It's easily done. 

[Abstraktum]

1 hour ago, Seguidora-de-Isis said:

 

 

I give you a full translation  

 

Spinosaurus tooth, 95 mm lengh. With self-inflicted bitemarks. The tooth is from Morocco and, like most stuff from there, a composition. It looks like the natrual Matrix is holding the tooth together. It is really stable, even with the cracks. So I belive it was glued together. But you don't see any glue. Great pice.

 

Carcharodontosaurus tooth, 26 mm, african T-Rex, Sahara, Morocco. Tooth was glued 2 times, but it is stable.

 

Fossil Vertebra, 27x13 mm. Great surface, great overall status.

 

All 100 % real.

 

Private sale from my collection. No warranty, guarantee or taking back.

 

 

 

[Seguidora-de-Isis]

1 hour ago, Abstraktum said:

 

I give you a full translation ...

 

I am very grateful for your perfect translation! Your job is infinitely better than Google translator! And this ad actually referred to this wonderful lot:

 

 

And as the seller was not sure of anything, he ended up deciding to give everything as a gift for only 55 Euros.

 

 

[Abstraktum]

29 minutes ago, Seguidora-de-Isis said:

And as the seller was not sure of anything, he ended up deciding to give everything as a gift for only 55 Euros.

 

Bargain for sure  

Even if he did bite a little into the Spino tooth 

[Vertebrate]

It was apparently sold very fast, but not by me. 

To me, the coloration looks very much like Hell Creek fm. I have a small T.Rex tooth from Carter County / Montana, which has a very similar color and preservation, with a severe (feeding?)-damage to the tip though.

[Seguidora-de-Isis]

32 minutes ago, Vertebrate said:

It was apparently sold very fast, but not by me. ...

 

 

This angle of photography is simply fantastic!

 

Congratulations! Beautiful tooth of Tyrannosaurid!

 

 

If we had a photo angle like this in here this post, just like the size of the tooth, it would certainly be easier to try to help.

[Vertebrate]

20 minutes ago, Seguidora-de-Isis said:

 

This angle of photography is simply fantastic!

 

Congratulations! Beautiful tooth of Tyrannosaurid!

 

 

If we had a photo angle like this in here this post, just like the size of the tooth, it would certainly be easier to try to help.

 

Gracias!  

The almost square cross section is why I’m pretty sure it’s Rex and not Nanotyrannus, aside from the question if it might be the same species.