Whats The Best Fossil You Destroyed?

[Scylla]

Let's not forget what happens when your cap falls off of your shark tooth storage tube and you drop most of a day's worth of teeth into the surf at Brownies beach.

Also found a large arthrodire plate in a larger boulder in Arizona, spent over an hour in the hot sun chipping a few lines in the rock to trim it to the size that I could lift into the car...

now I have three pieces of a large arthrodire.

Edited June 20, 2010 by Scylla

[FossilFreak]

I've never had any screw ups as big as some of those posted, b/c I've never found anything as great as what is being discussed. But here's my story:

I have only been to the Peace River once and one of the things I was hoping to find was a gator tooth. Well about an hour or two into the day I saw it and it was beautiful. I kept it out of my pouch with all my bone fragments and teeth and stuck it in my pocket thinking it would be safer. It wasn't:

I was able to super glue it back together, but I'll certainly be more careful next time.

[Auspex]

Let's not forget what happens when your cap falls off of your shark tooth storage tube and you drop most of a day's worth of teeth into the surf at Brownies beach.

Catch-and release is the mark of a true sportsman!

[bear-dog]

I have only had one bad experience like that.I had taken the day off from work the day before our fossil show set-up,to go fossil hunting.On the hunt I found the largest most complete Eremothere tooth I've ever seen.Up to that point I had never found as much as a fragment of one,so it made my day.

The day of the set-up about mid way we paused for lunch,so I decided to bring it in to show it off.To be careful I would not go in the regular entrance due to heavy traffic and a step up,I would come in the rear door.I went out to the car ,grabbed the tooth that was carefully wrapped and in a box,gave it another kiss and proceeded to go in.

As I walked I stood tall, chest out ,head held high.Opened the door,stepped in and tripped over a large box placed near the door.Almost in slow motion I watched the tooth come out of the wrapping and fly out of the box,hitting the floor then exploding.

After spending 30 min. sweeping up the mess I continued with setting up.[The show must go on.]Thinking about it still puts tears in my beer,as I have yet to find a fragment of an Eremothere tooth since.

[wRick]

I went to Venice beach to dive for sharks teeth a couple years ago. I had a boat dive planned for the next morning after our 3:00 arrival so I decided to get a shore dive in that day as a warm up.

I found a perfect upper anterior meg, not too big, around 2 inches, but it was a beauty, dark grey with white lightning strikes through the enamel, tan root, perfectly symmetrical, every serration intact. And absolutely clean, no encrustations of any kind, must have just been washed out of the layer.

I was so pleased with this tooth that when we went out to dinner I put it in my pocket so I could pull it out and gaze at it all night long.

By the time we got back to the hotel after dinner, the tooth was split in half right down the center!

I superglued it back together but some pieces of enamel are gone leaving a crack through the middle of the tooth.

Now I carry small plastic cases to keep my gem quality finds in just in case I feel the need to carry them around and fondle them all night.

[oilshale]

Second one:

last summer i was preparing a small plate with 2 uncommon Guizhouamia bellula (triassic fishes from China) i was delicately laying soft acid on it...fishes became visible BUT what i didn't knew at that time is that they were coming from a very soft layer on which it is not adviced to lay water...

So acid + water i used to wash the plate has been sucked by the matrix....when i took it in my hand it just fell into 100 little pieces....

Just to make memories even worser: I guess this was the plate David is talking about:

He knew that I am always interested in rare and hard to find fossil fish - so he showed me this picture. He should have sold it unprepped to me

Thomas

Edited July 27, 2010 by oilshale

[FF7_Yuffie]

Mine was only a few weeks ago at France

I'd found a pretty large fossilised shell stuck in some matrix, not sure how rare it is but it looked cool. Anyway, like a ###### I completely lost my grip on it when climbing the steps off of the beach and it bounced all the way down...

I was annoyed