Ive finally cracked it...... These have been sat on the beach for hundreds of years in some cases slowley eroding away, with the beach situated amongst the most dense consentration of commercially minded collectors in the country.... The only reasons I can think of that they sat there and wernt picked up is either they are too difficult or time consuming to prep and because of this they would get very little for their efforts in finacial return..... Its the only plausable explanation....to do what I do you have to love em..... you have to forget money...if your worried about your time and money, you dont enjoy there sheer size, the magic of uncovering the past, grain by grain as you preogress..... some people would find it boring..... but to be honest, I cant get enough...... I knew it looked different from the start.... the rock it was in felt different, the texture, it was more fibrous... the way it behaved under stress...... a short prep time of probably only 28 hours or so..... which is pretty good for one of these.... sometimes if you get the ammonite shell sat on a bed of shells, the limestone cements like concrete and its more a battle of whits and patience that gets you the result.... fortunately this one played the game..... Ive struggled myself with the ID and its only when you put it amongst the others you can see the not so subtle differences to the 'usual' Coroniceras you find on this beach..... the ribs are more straight, the curvature in the shell is more apparent ( I dont know the 'technical terms' lol...I walk the walk not talk the talk).....and the colours of the very fine calcification is quite different as well in some places almost see through and less than a mm thick..... so i have had to go easy on the sanding down of this one.....after chewing over what it could be, half prepped I gave up and consulted a good friend of mine who pointed me to the right fossil once we could see the wood from the trees.... Its a new on for my collection , which is always a buzz.....

Arietites(Paracoroniceras)oblongaries Lyme Regis Lower Jurassic Sinemurian