You Wanna See Real HeartBreak!!!

[RJB]

  About 3 or 4 years ago I made a trade with a guy from New Zealand.   Today I received the last part of the trade.   Apon opening it up I knew immediatly that it was broken!!!  After taking off the bubble wrap my heart just sank and I could see it was in many pieces!  Im going to have a very hard time sleeping tonight.   This thing was HUGE!!!   Just glad no one is here to see me cry. 

 

RB

[Bobby Rico]

Sorry my friend I feel your disappointment.  

[Peat Burns]

Oh nooooo...  .  Is it at all salvageable (i.e. glue it back together and prep it)?

[Fossildude19]

Ouch!  

Sorry Ron. That's gotta hurt. 

[FossilDAWG]

Oh man, that sucks.  It looks like it's mostly big pieces though, so maybe Humpty Dumpty can be put back together?  At least you don't have to wonder which side is the top (trying hard to find the bright side to the situation).

 

Don

[Tidgy's Dad]

Tragedy. 

Very sorry that this happened. 

[jcbshark]

Ouch Ron, that hurts

[Gizmo]

Sorry Ron. 

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

Oh no ... !  That's a heart-breaker for sure. Darn .. sorry RB.

 

[ynot]

Sorry for Your loss.

[Dave pom Allen]

not good ron. i takes i lot to crack open these concretions . its a shame it looked like a nice example. 

we are not all like this in new zealand when i do a trade its swift and happens the way we arrange.

[Fossilis Willis]

Ouch! Heartbreak indeed. If there's anyone who can put that puzzle together, it's you. Good luck with the rebuild. 

[Wrangellian]

How did it end up broken - are these conc's that fragile??

[Kane]

I'm really sorry it turned out this way, Ron. But, if anyone has faced and surmounted just about every prep challenge under the sun, it's you. Even if it turns out to be a B-grade by your high standards once you can piece it together, it's likely an A-grade for most others.  

[RJB]

  Thank you everyone.  I will get over this but only time can heal this kind of sorrow. 

 

9 hours ago, Dave (POM) Allen said:

we are not all like this in new zealand when i do a trade its swift and happens the way we arrange.

Hes a good guy Dave, the reason it took so long was that I was waiting for the perfect crab.   It was my fault it took so long. 

 

RB

[FossilsAnonymous]

@RJB that really sucks. That would have been a monster, too.

[Archie]

Sorry for your loss I totally feel your pain  time does make it better though

[RJB]

  Sometime next week I jus tmay start putting this back together.  

 

RB

[Fossilis Willis]

After taking a closer look at the pictures and having some idea of the incredible prep work you're capable of, I'm  confident that you'll be able  to return this beauty to it's former glory. I hope you'll share your progress.

[Ludwigia]

My condolences

[siteseer]

Hi RJB,

 

I was sorry to hear about your trouble.  That's bad packing.  The box was probably not big enough and it was certainly not padded enough.  The box should have been able to hold something at least twice the diameter of the concretion.  In my area we have JDM stores which provide shipping supplies as well as being UPS shippers.  I can get a number of box sizes including refrigerator boxes and stuff like zip-locks less than 2x2 inches.  I can also get various kinds of foam in sheets of different thicknesses as well as some rather randomly-shaped pieces which I can carve to a size/shape I need.

 

In a pinch you can loosely wad up pages of newspaper to help pad a box so that whatever you're shipping floats within the packing.  I have put a heavy item within a padded box and then shipped it within another padded box.

 

Of course, the best-packed box can be compromised by a careless Customs agent if the box is opened, inspected, but not repacked and resealed the way it was.

 

Jess

[RJB]

   Thanks everyone.   im going to start gluing this thing back together soon.  I am calling this project,,,,,,,,,,,NIGHTMARE CRAB!!!    Not sure yet what kind of repair I will have to do but im confident that it should turn out purty good.  Once i do get started I will post on 'RB's Crab Preppin Thread.  

 

RB

[Fossilis Willis]

[crabfossilsteve]

Boy that sucks.  Considering how hard some of those concretions are, they must have taken a sludge hammer to it.  Knowling you though, I'm sure the puzzle will go back together and another beauty will be revealed.  Good luck man.

[Mark Kmiecik]

On 5/5/2019 at 11:34 PM, siteseer said:

Of course, the best-packed box can be compromised by a careless Customs agent if the box is opened, inspected, but not repacked and resealed the way it was.

Or customs may have deliberately cracked it open to see if there were drugs or other contraband inside the concretion? If they had x-rayed the concretion the crab may have shown up as a denser material inside and they wanted to know what it was. In my experience with concretions (thousands of Mazon Creek specimens) they don't just fall apart if you bump them hard or drop them. If you choose to hammer one open without first running it through many freeze/thaw cycles you have to smack it really hard several times before it even begins to think about opening. With the amount of paranoia running around the world today, this may be the new reality of international mindset when shipping "rocks". I'm not saying that this is what happened, but the possibility is enough to make me rethink the shipping of valuable specimens. Pretty soon we'll need to escort the specimen to its destination.