Permian Reptile Captorhinus Fake Again?

[hadrosauridae]

4 minutes ago, Lucid_Bot said:

It doesn't bother me that it's a composite so much as it looks like plastic for bone.

 

If its a cast of a real bone element, youd never know except though tests for paint.  Even real bone gets painted some times to make it "look better".  The problem I see with your item is that lots of elements look like they were hand fashioned from epoxy.  The ribs especially look like someone rolled out "snakes" of clay or epoxy.  You really need to spend a lot of time just looking at real fossils to train your eye for what is "right".  That way when you see something "wrong", it really jumps out at you.

[Coco]

18 hours ago, Lucid_Bot said:

Any further responses please DM me as I can't scroll to the next page 

Perhaps a tip that could help you : in the URL of the page, there is a place where it is written "page/2/".

 

Try to replace by hand the 2 by 3 and send. Look what it does, normally you could go to page 3.

 

Coco

Edited October 31, 2023 by Coco

[rocket]

On 10/31/2023 at 12:41 AM, Fossildude19 said:

Not familiar with this locality or it's fossils. 

 

@rocket  @oilshale @paleoflor

these cones come normally from the Region of Steinhardt / Bad Sobernheim, this is near Alzey in SW-Germany

I am unsure if it is real, necessary to see a UV-Pic. There are some good artists around here...

[rocket]

On 10/31/2023 at 10:37 AM, paleoflor said:

 

This one is real and not a bad specimen, I'd say.

 

I do not think that it is totally real. We have had several and know some guys who do this. It is hard to prep them, so some collectors build them up like "real". Most of them are 50/50, cone sheds are reconstruction, center not

[Psittacosaur9]

On 10/31/2023 at 10:01 AM, Lucid_Bot said:

Could someone explain to me what that reptile is. Plastic?

 

On 10/31/2023 at 9:07 AM, Lucid_Bot said:

Now this will really sadden me if it's fake. It's a Permian Period Captorhinus reptile from Lawson, Oklahoma. Please give me some good news.

You can see that:

 

a) the fossil and its matrix do not look like real fossil and matrix . It's difficult to describe exactly how, but once you've seen hundreds or thousands of fossils the difference between a bad fake and a real specimen become obvious. I guess one difference would be that, on average, fakes that are painted often in an unnatural, overly shiny or black colour, although fossils can be black or white. The matrix also looks like sediment glued together, but not rock.

 

b) there are various problems with anatomy; for instance, the bones alone the side of the neck look nothing like reptile bones but more like sea urchin spines, the hind legs' joints are pointing in the same direction as the arm joints (if you look at any living tetrapod, including yourself, you will notice that the arm and leg joints point in opposite directions) and the skull does not properly align with the rest of the well-aticulated skeleton.

 

Hope this helps!

[Psittacosaur9]

On 10/31/2023 at 10:01 AM, Lucid_Bot said:

Could someone explain to me what that reptile is. Plastic?

 

On 10/31/2023 at 9:07 AM, Lucid_Bot said:

I know I'm a bit late, but you can see that:

 

a) the fossil and its matrix do not look like real fossil and matrix . It's difficult to describe exactly how, but once you've seen hundreds or thousands of fossils the difference between a bad fake and a real specimen become obvious. I guess one difference would be that, on average, fakes that are painted often in an unnatural, overly shiny or black colour, although fossils can be black or white. The matrix also looks like sediment glued together, but not rock.

 

b) there are various problems with anatomy; for instance, the bones alone the side of the neck look nothing like reptile bones but more like sea urchin spines, the hind legs' joints are pointing in the same direction as the arm joints (if you look at any living tetrapod, including yourself, you will notice that the arm and leg joints point in opposite directions) and the skull does not properly align with the rest of the well-articulated skeleton.

 

Hope this helps!

[Q.Manuel]

On 10/31/2023 at 12:21 AM, Lucid_Bot said:

I actually bought this one....

Have to correct, while these pine cones exist that nice and large, there are also fakes of them around. I have one here, I already removed some of the color (white spots), the red circle highlights an air bubble. If I look at the posted cone, I see some suspicious very circular bubbles in the cone I wouldn’t expect in the natural one. Try some aceton on it and look for suspicious seams and texture changes in the baryte nodule. The fakes I‘m referring to are casts set in original nodules. Very hard to spot as you can see in my image.

[Q.Manuel]

On 10/30/2023 at 11:59 PM, Lucid_Bot said:

It seems everything I like is fake, fun.

 

Is this fake too.....................?

Nursallia from Lebanon, wouldn’t judge from this sole image. They can be very faint and the heads are often a mess.

But I agree, the head looks suspicious on first (and second) sight.

Most Lebanon is found as splits and actually most of them are very even splits, so usually you won’t see the highest quality and you can expect some restoration.

[paleoflor]

On 11/2/2023 at 11:08 AM, rocket said:

I do not think that it is totally real. We have had several and know some guys who do this. It is hard to prep them, so some collectors build them up like "real". Most of them are 50/50, cone sheds are reconstruction, center not

Really?!? You mean people create composite cones from random loose bracts or even altogether counterfeit materials? In my view, it'd be quite OK to glue back on any bits that got dislodged during the preparation process of a single cone, but of course not OK to create your own amalgamations from completely unrelated bracts... Bit disheartening thought, really.

 

Best way to ensure your material is genuine is to get the concretions unopened and do the splitting yourself. 

[paleoflor]

37 minutes ago, Q.Manuel said:

Have to correct, while these pine cones exist that nice and large, there are also fakes of them around. I have one here, I already removed some of the color (white spots), the red circle highlights an air bubble. If I look at the posted cone, I see some suspicious very circular bubbles in the cone I wouldn’t expect in the natural one. Try some aceton on it and look for suspicious seams and texture changes in the baryte nodule. The fakes I‘m referring to are casts set in original nodules. Very hard to spot as you can see in my image.

 

Thanks for sharing this! Very informative (and also confronting to realise this type of counterfeiting is also done in plant fossils now...)

[Lucid_Bot]

On 10/30/2023 at 7:21 PM, Lucid_Bot said:

I actually bought this one....

I got better pictures of the pine cone. 

[hadrosauridae]

I'm going to preface this reply with the statement that I have never seen this type of fossil before, or even other fossils from the formation this is supposed to come from.

 

Looking at you close ups, the first thing I notice is that the "fossil" looks to be the exact texture of the surrounding matrix.  That COULD mean its carved and fake, or it could mean that its an internal mold cast and completely legitimate.

Second observation is that there is no clear lines on the body of the fossil.  If it is real, then it was seriously over-prepped in an attempt to make the "petals" of the cone stand out.

Third observation, look at the dark brown portion at the bottom of the last photo.  THAT is legit fossil.  The color, the clear delineation, the texture, the shine.  This tells me that THIS is what all of the fossil should probably look like.  

I also see the same dark color present through a gap at the top of picture 3.  That is probably the true fossil underneath.

 

My guesstimation is that this is a concretionary fossil, that when split was found to be in poor shape.  Rather than discard it, they decided to glue it back together and then carve out what was probably the original  shape,  before being lost to erosion or scavenge.

[Lucid_Bot]

29 minutes ago, hadrosauridae said:

I'm going to preface this reply with the statement that I have never seen this type of fossil before, or even other fossils from the formation this is supposed to come from.

 

Looking at you close ups, the first thing I notice is that the "fossil" looks to be the exact texture of the surrounding matrix.  That COULD mean its carved and fake, or it could mean that its an internal mold cast and completely legitimate.

Second observation is that there is no clear lines on the body of the fossil.  If it is real, then it was seriously over-prepped in an attempt to make the "petals" of the cone stand out.

Third observation, look at the dark brown portion at the bottom of the last photo.  THAT is legit fossil.  The color, the clear delineation, the texture, the shine.  This tells me that THIS is what all of the fossil should probably look like.  

I also see the same dark color present through a gap at the top of picture 3.  That is probably the true fossil underneath.

 

My guesstimation is that this is a concretionary fossil, that when split was found to be in poor shape.  Rather than discard it, they decided to glue it back together and then carve out what was probably the original  shape,  before being lost to erosion or scavenge.

Thanks for the informative reply!

[Lucid_Bot]

22 hours ago, hadrosauridae said:

I'm going to preface this reply with the statement that I have never seen this type of fossil before, or even other fossils from the formation this is supposed to come from.

 

 

Sounds reasonable. It seems as though this is mostly fabrication. I'm not sure what to say to the seller. 

[killer2906]

On 10/30/2023 at 11:07 PM, Lucid_Bot said:

Now this will really sadden me if it's fake. It's a Permian Period Captorhinus reptile from Lawson, Oklahoma. Please give me some good news.

In my opinion, some bones are real.

The bones from this site were found separately and put together as one.

They are then glued onto an artificial matrix for illustration purposes.

The limb bones and vertebrae look real to me and have different shades of color, as they are from different individuals.

The skull was apparently reconstructed, maybe with real bone parts.

Ribs and vertebral processes are completely reconstructed.

[Lucid_Bot]

On 3/4/2024 at 2:32 AM, killer2906 said:

In my opinion, some bones are real.

The bones from this site were found separately and put together as one.

They are then glued onto an artificial matrix for illustration purposes.

The limb bones and vertebrae look real to me and have different shades of color, as they are from different individuals.

The skull was apparently reconstructed, maybe with real bone parts.

Ribs and vertebral processes are completely reconstructed.

Thanks for the informative answer. I actually returned the piece as it seemed to be largely plastic.