Devonian Fossil Hunting
7 messages in this thread
Hi Joe-
As a lot of our forum guys know, I live in Binghamton, NY, right off of the
Devonian shore. Uses of Devonian: chucking at rabbits in the garden, boat
anchors, etc. (G) We have mostly shale here, and some extremely uncommon (so
I'm told) stuff. I'm always up for swapping fossils, stories, etc. Also,
Cornell is right up the road from me and allegedly can ID the local stuff.
(I've never tried. Most of the stuff is in the books…) A few trilobites,
*lots* of bivalves and crinoids. To quote some of my previous comments:
"ARGH!!!! Devonian in the lawnmower again!!!!" (G) Anyway………JD
WOW. I wish I had your problems.
Are you interested in trading for stuff from Ohio's Devonian limestones?
Joe
Still working on the crab, just slower <g>
I hear that nicely prepared slabs of crinoids go for about $20,000.
Hi, John–
Having been dubious of Jerry's assertions such plates could go for $20,000, I
was startled to see at last year's Tucson show not only one of those (the
crinoid heads were separated from stems), but another asking $35,000. If I had
started out a fossil collector, such prices might have scared me into mineral
collecting anyway. 🙂
–Doug
……….and yes, there is such a thing as $20,000 for a nice slab of
crinoids. They have to be crinoid *heads* though, and are VERY uncommon. I have
what might be one, but really too mangled to tell. The heads were soft and
didn't fossilize easily. See _A Pictorial Guide to Fossils_, page 20, for a
picture of just such a slab, found by B. H. Beane in Iowa. Now as to *my*
finding such a slab…….. and I've been looking around here for more years
than I'd care to count…… Stems are a dime a dozen around here. I have some
nice casts. Crinoid hash with tons of the little disks mixed together is also
quite common here…….JD