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So you want to buy a Spinosaurus Claw? Then this might help you. This is a guide I wanted to set up for a while to help others in finding and buying a real claw. Its mostly focused on new collectors. I have noticed recently many people are searching and ending up with fake claws. This made me upset, and I wanted to reach out, and hopefully safe some people from this trap. A disclaimer: this is based on my experiences and opinions, by no means im a Paleontologist or do I know everything, but since I have started collecting, I have been obsessed with searching for claws, and you learn allot along the way, and by talking to other fanatics and sharing information. The photos I have used are from the past, taken from the web , the forum, or auction platforms, or personal. Special thanks to some members on this forum who have helped and still help me with sharing they knowledge. At this moment there are more fake claws than real claws to be find online and in stores. This is very important to know. Its very problematic. And its a big business. Im focussing in this topic specifically on 'Spinosaurids' Handclaws from Marokko. Keep in mind a real claw is very expensive, we cannot talk about prices here , but im just stating , finding a good real claw cheap is like winning the lottery. Also keep in mind a claw is much much more rare then a tooth. The Spinosaurus had only 3 of them on each hand. While it shed tooth and regrown them its whole life span, this is why a Spinosaurus tooth is not so expensive and rare. Another thing to keep remembering, do not trust any dealer / or seller blindly, I have seen fake claws being sold by dealers who have a good reputation. Im not at all saying they did it on purpose. Its up to you to educate yourself enough to know what your doing. Also do not fall for the trap of 'with authenticity documents' it does not mean anything, and can be made by anyone. Key things that are very difficult to imitate are the bloodgroves, running from both sides, and the bone structure, that runs around and follows curve of the claw, and the general shape of the claw. Finding a complete unrestored claw is even rarer, most of them have a missing tip, or back end, much like Dinosaur teeth also, the tip is very fragille, and usually restored, or glued together. Complete ones are very rare. There is also something to say on what of the three claws your dealing with , the tumb claw is the most valuable and thickest so the most wanted , they can be massive. The bigger the claw the higher the price, its as simple as that. Im dividing this topic in 6 sections with photos, what to look for, what to run away from. Ill start with the bad, going down to the best. Mostly highlighting the traps. 1 - fake composite claws the most common 2 - Carved bone caws 3 - partially fake composite claws (very misleading and dangerous 4 - poorly preserved, but real claws 5 - restored enhanced claws 6 - real claws 1. Here we have some examples of fake composited claws. There are tons of them on the web, Ive selected a few of them to make the point. Look at the wierd curved shape, horrible! another very bad composed one , look at the awe full non smooth shape And here a pretty common thing you see with fake composed claws, they sure parts of bone in their creation , to make it appear real, bellow I've marked were Another bad example, notice the overdone bloodgroves, clearly made by man. Ive quickly marked some parts where you can see random parts of bone have been added. 2. Ok so now we move on to carved from bone claws. Ive highlighted one specific one that was pretty misleading. It looked almost to perfect, and they had managed to more or less let the bone structure follow up curve of the claw. Ive almost ended up buying this claw (luckily I did not) the week after the seller had posted an almost identical , proving even more it was a fake the chance of having two claws that are almost identical is 0 in ? . Looking back at it, I think its made from multiple bone parts shifted to make it appear that it follows the curve, the shape is also to perfect to be real. They also ad these cracks with some filler, to give it a more authentic appeal ! look out for these. Here al two other carved bone claws. For the untrained eye, real, because you see 'bone' its very misleading and dangerous, a complete fake. Ive made some markings, showing the straight line of the bone structure. This should have been curved , following the curve of the claw. Another thing to notice is the almost perfect unnatural shape, especially the back end. The cracks they add on purpose to make them appeal authentic. 100% fake. One more: Again spot the straight line structure. 3. Ok so now I move on to partially fake composite claws (very misleading and dangerous) it contains parts of a real claw, but its overall fake. Ive highlighted one claw as a clear example. Notice a small part of the middle area to be real, and the tip also, they have kept these parts and added composite around it, to make it appear as an a authentic claw. 4. Now we move on to poorly preserved, but real claws. A choice of the buyer whether you want to invest in this or not. It can be nice if the price is good. Usually the price is for these are almost the same as other real claws though. But at least you are not buying a fake. A very nice and huge tumb claw , it clearly shows the bone structure following up the curve of the claw. It also shows us a clear mark were it was broken and fixed back together with filler and glue. In my opinion still very nice to have. A large authentic claw, but it has allot of hard matrix still attached to it. This can be dangerous if you are not knowing what to look for. Notice the bone structure small holls, and the bloodgrove. And last a small but real handclaw, a bit poorly preserved. 5 - Ok now we take a look at Restored enhanced claws, these can be tricky also. A fair seller should provide you with a before and after photo. If you are OK with it, you can move along, but know its not an authentic complete claw. They make them apear bigger, better, etc. Personally I always prefer authentic. Photo of the claw as it has been found. Here is an example of a before and after. The same claw after the restoration? Can you recognize it? Also notice the redish color batch they add to cover up the resto. Another example bellow of a real claw that has been restored, and colored the same way. Hard to say what the original would have looked. And last another one were I have marked the real part, and most likely the complete tip has been restored. 6. And then we Finally move on to the REAL claws Here we see a very fine example of a middle sized claw Notice the beautiful bone structure, the small holes, and the flawless color, and the bloodgrove. Another nice example, completely authentic with some filler. Very nice example. Good tip and back end. Two other very nicely preserved examples, with the typical Kem Kem colorization. Another nice one I think its the middle claw of the hand. It has been cracked in three parts but clearly visible and real. Another example, it shows a clear bone structure, blood grove etc. These things are very hard to imitate. So there we go , Hope this helps some collectors! I might edit some along the way. Apologies for some typo errors it might contain. English is not my native language.

Hello people, This is my very first post. I recently bought this tooth since the fatty chunkyness (is this a real word?) appealed to me.it is on its way now Seller says it is spinosaurid. If so were in the jaws can this tooth be placed since it is very fat and large as opposed to the many slender teeth that are usually found on the net. My first tought is that it is maybe from the lower jaw (dentary ) and from the front of the jaw. The picture is from the website. Already thanks for any reply. With best regards, Dirk

I would like to know what kind of dinosaur claws this is. It comes from Moroccan kemkem. thank you

Hello! I have had this bone from theKem Kem, Morocco, for a awhile now. The seller told me it was pterosaur, i took it with a grain of salt as sellers usually misidentify fossils from the Kem Kem, especially bones. The length of the bone is around 65 mm Cheers. - Adriano

This came in a lot with a mosasaur tooth and partial spino tooth as well as petrified wood. I have asked about the Mosasaur tooth here previously. Not sure what this vert came from or if it's even real.

Hi. I've just received this Kem Kem huge partial theropod vertebra (just the process) and I just wanted to know whether it's possible to ID? Was told Spinosaurid is likely but could also be Carch. Thanks in advance.

Here is a spinosaurus claw for sale on an auction site. I can't see any major red flags except for some small repairs, but i don't know. What do people here think? It's 10 cm long

I bought an unidentified bone fossil from Kemkem beds,does anyone know what species of this?Thank you!

Hi everyone bought a decent size box of inexpensive kem kem bone pieces any help with these would be great I’m guessing the jawbone are more than likely croc same as the verts

I purchased this rib from Kemkem beds,but I'm not sure if it belongs to a dinosaur or a crocodile, does anyone have an idea? Thank you

Here by my new Spinosaurus Aegypticus tooth from Taouz, Morocco. It is 4 1/2 inches. The colors are less common than your regular Moroccon Spinosaurus teeth. It has 0 restoration done to the tooth, and the quality is very high. Which I find special about this one. Noticed some slight patho and serrations on this tooth too? Could someone explain the patho perhaps.

Just seen this was published on the 26th of May 2022 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.05.25.493395v1?fs=e&s=cl&fbclid=IwAR14IHzQeYGdAfzZqcrIWKW3ZqkdIeTOy22S168b2dFEKPy7oe6a-ITIzmM

Hi i just came aross this claw from kem kem basin . seller claimed to be no repair/restoration Look pretty nice to me . what do you think ? any repair or restoration ? any red frag ? thank in advance ! Gun

I got this nice theropod tooth awhile ago. And got a few questions. Is it restored? I don't think so but want be sure. And the label that came with it was "bahariya Formation - Kem Kem Beds, Taouz, Morocco". But bahariya Formation is from Egypt? So was the label just wrong and its just from the Kem Kem? Regards - Adriano

Hi! I found this fossil sawfish rostrum from Kem Kem. Never seen anything like that from the Kem Kem. Is it real? Regards

Hi everyone, Just got these, I think I see blood groves but you never know. So I'm here for a second opinion. Morocco, Cretaceous, Kem Kem beds Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Hi! I got this type of jaw from the Kem Kem Beds of Morocco. I was thinking some type of fish? Hope somebody has an idea of what it can be. Regards

Hi! Is this real? It says its lepidotes fish from Kem Kem Beds, Morocco Upper Cretaceous Regards

Hi everyone! Recently my institute just bought a bunch of fish tooth from Morocco. We offer it those photo and when we received the box, almost the tooth have been glued and cracked. The seller didn’t explain the situation of the goods. So this condition happened as commonly with these kind of fossil or better there are many have better condition? Is that nature broken we they taken fossil in the matrix at the field? Please help me with this case. follow are photos

Are these Sauropod teeth real? They are from the Kem Kem Beds, Morocco If so are they restored? Repaired?

Hi all, here is a pterosaur beak i saw on an auction site. It's kemkem, do peeps here think it's a beak?

A couple of weeks ago, I acquired a gorgeous fish and mosasaur association, from a seller on the web. It hails from the Cretaceous of Khouribga, Morocco, unprepped, just split out of the rock! Here's the fossil in question! Ignore the mess in the background... Can you believe this thing is 70.6 - 66 million years old!? Look at the sheer awesome preservation on that fish spine; absolutely stunning! So, story time. The tooth is from the species "Mosasaurus beaugei", a pretty large mosasaurine. Here's a nice image (or, 2 images...) of the size of Mosasaurus (silhouette 16) against other mosasaurines, and a human. As you can see, that's... A pretty big beasty! It came from the Ouled Abdoun Basin in Morocco, which is a HUGE sedimentary phosphate basin - so big that it holds nearly half of Morocco's phosphate reserves, which is over 26.8 billion tons of phosphate (24,312,551,032,000 kilograms). That's... A lot! To be precise, but in an interesting metric, that's 50 humans worth of phosphate for each human on the planet, or 3,078 kilograms for each of us! Anyways, geology cool and whatever, but we're here for the fossils. The O. A. Basin is absolutely fascinating. Its deposits range in age from the late Cretaceous (100 million years), to the late Eocene epoch (48 million years). That alone is fascinating, but it's the sheer amount (and quality) of vertebrate fossils to be found here that makes it so special. Shown above is a typical phosphate quarry in Morocco. In 2017, a whopping $6.12 billion USD worth of minerals and precious metals were mined, making it one of the most important industries in the whole country. Large phosphate deposits such as this form in seawater, particularly areas rich with animal corpses and nutrients. This, obviously, means that phosphate beds are usually choc-full of fossils. As the phosphatic rock is so greatly mined, tonnes of fossils come out as a by-product. Locals collect these unfortunately fragmented fossils (hence why few whole specimen come out), and sell them. Too many fossils are fabricated, using a real tooth or bone and setting it into a fake jaw or matrix made out of dust, plaster and glue, such as these: There are many a post on this forum explaining how to spot these composites. The images above show the most common fake fossils from Morocco. The teeth (Otodus obliquus and Mosasaurus sp.) are real, but have been collected and set into the fake jaws and rock, to make them look more attractive and sell for more money. This by itself would be okay, however these fossils aren't sold as "composite" (called composite as some of the fossil is real), they are sold as real, 100% natural fossils, making it fraudulent, and illegal. Still tourists buy these, unknowing that they are composite. A really good article on Moroccan fossils can be found here: www.fossilguy.com | Why are there so many Otodus fossil shark teeth and Mosasaur teeth from Morocco? Not to mention, the fossil trade in Morocco is quite lucrative, but also sometimes highly unethical. I always make sure to purchase from ethical sources, and the fossil shown in my photos is no exception to this rule. Anyways, enough about the facts, lets prep on! I began by (very, very carefully) soaking the specimen in a controlled room with 5% vol. acetic acid, which should weaken the matrix, allowing me to reveal details previously hidden. Then, delicately, I used a needle and pin vice to lift up the matrix, exposing the fossils. In the photo, you can see I packed the tooth in with tissue, to ensure it doesn't come off, as I wish for it to remain in-situ. I then started to reveal a fish rib that was almost entirely hidden! You can see it poking out to the left of the tooth. Finally, I started to expose the fish vertebra (spine plate) above the rib, which came out somewhat stickily, but is now very pretty, if not a little distorted under the weight of the rock. And here's the final piece (for now)... There's more to prep out, for example a heavy load of bone mass towards the top of the piece, and a suspect coprolite in front of the spine, but that is another times' task - I've already spent dozens of hours soaking, needling and drying out this specimen!

I have had these fossils for awhile now. A sawfish onchopristis and a shark dorsal fin spine. Are they good quality? Any restorations?

I have thought about buying this sawfish rostrum from the Cretaceous Kem Kem Beds in Morocco. Is it real? Does it have any restoration?