Shark Teeth Storage Question

[MakoMeCrazy]

I have a problem sorting some of my teeth. I can't decide if I should place all of them together based on species and just forget about the location,or should I have seperate containers for seperate locations?

Ex- I have found a mako from Green Mill Run in NC and the teeth are from the Miocene and Pliocene. I have also found a mako from the spoil at Lee creek mine. These are roughly from the same time period but from completely different locations. The teeth at GMR are mostly a dark brown and black while the teeth from Lee creek are tan/cream colored. But overall, how would you determine which of the same species of teeth go together?

I just need sugestions on what I should do. If you could, please tell me how you sort your teeth.

Do you sort based on location or do you just throw all of the same specied teeth in a container?

Edited June 8, 2012 by Fossilz

[Wendell Ricketts]

Here's my advice: Do not, whatever you do, "forget about location" - it's the single most important piece of data in your collection. Each specimen should be able to be precisely tied to where it was collected -- either with a unique number or some other system of your creation. At that point, how you display the specimens becomes unimportant. Put all your mako teeth together, if you want. If they're individually numbered, you'll always know the provenance of each single specimen. If you aren't going to go with a unique numbering system, then don't mix specimens for storage or display. It's one of the things that often makes me saddest when I see other people's collections -- they have no idea, or only a vague one, where their material came from (especially likely to be true if you buy fossils rather than collect them yourself). In any case, careful cataloging is the defining factor between a properly curated, nonprofessional collection and a box of rocks.

W.

[Kosmoceras]

Here's my advice: Do not, whatever you do, "forget about location" - it's the single most important piece of data in your collection. Each specimen should be able to be precisely tied to where it was collected -- either with a unique number or some other system of your creation. At that point, how you display the specimens becomes unimportant. Put all your mako teeth together, if you want. If they're individually numbered, you'll always know the provenance of each single specimen. If you aren't going to go with a unique numbering system, then don't mix specimens for storage or display. It's one of the things that often makes me saddest when I see other people's collections -- they have no idea, or only a vague one, where their material came from (especially likely to be true if you buy fossils rather than collect them yourself). In any case, careful cataloging is the defining factor between a properly curated, nonprofessional collection and a box of rocks.

W.

Well said. I agree, do not leave out the location. It is information like that which makes the specimen of any scientific value. I keep my shark teeth in small resalable bags which I keep a label in with all of the geological data (the age location, type of tooth etc). Then those bags are kept in a box labelled with the contents.

[erose]

My teeth are also well labeled and kept with other fossils from the same location. Most are in clear divided boxes or zip-lock bags. For display I have gleamed a sampling of some of the better specimens and put them in a Riker Mount. But all the Riker specimens are again from the same local or at least formation.

[Paleoc]

I bag my teeth in zip lock bags by location and label the bag with the location. If I have multiples of the species from the same location, then I bag them together. Then I put them in a printer paper box with a general location, for example as I type this I can see my box labeled MD, VA, NJ, DEL. Inside that box will be plastic bags with teeth from each location.

[Tarheel59]

I like Erose have all mine in same boxes or from same locales together. It makes it easier to when I am looking for something too.

Also like Wendell said do not never forget about location...

One additional thing to consider if you have a tooth that has some pyrite on the root and you put them in with some that do not you may be spreading it to the others from another site.. My take on it not sure if it is true...

I also use rikers, jars, small pill bottles, little carboard jewelery boxes, and any other containers that I can utilize for storing fossils.. I have a couple home made display boxes also... Jeff

[MakoMeCrazy]

Thank-you all for the tips/information. This will definitely help me organize my collection now and in the future. Thanks for the advice!

this helped a ton!

-Brian

[Raptordude1]

I constructed wooden trays that have moveable dividers, so I can adjust them as my collection grows. I have my teeth seperated by both species and location. So I have all my teeth of one species located together but still seperated by site. This will probably get more difficult as I continue to collect in more areas but for now it works well.

[RickNC]

Same species from same location are stored together oin my collection.

[arien]

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[Paleoworld-101]

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Very nice display

[erik m]

Ad this moment I have the locations togther in my show case like this one.

On the back there are my bone valley teeth then a vew bakersfield teeth and in the front a vew teeth from Mill.

Also there are a vew teeth that are the only one's from a location but thy are labeled.

Soon I am going to relocate my collection to a other room(more space )

And then I am planning to claen the collection and put all teeth on a photo with location and spieces.

[DeloiVarden]

This is a question I think we all struggle with. I lack space and thus it is easiest to group similar stuff from similar locations. Thus far, I have not found it hard to remember where the few special specimen came from. Though I have a lot of different spots in the area I hunt, I can tell you where I found most of my specimen down to a few feet.

[Wendell Ricketts]

This is a question I think we all struggle with. I lack space and thus it is easiest to group similar stuff from similar locations. Thus far, I have not found it hard to remember where the few special specimen came from. Though I have a lot of different spots in the area I hunt, I can tell you where I found most of my specimen down to a few feet.

And that'll be great until you're no longer with us, and your collection becomes useless to whomever ends up with it ...

[DeloiVarden]

And that'll be great until you're no longer with us, and your collection becomes useless to whomever ends up with it ...

You have a good point afterall, I guess diving isn't very safe. My coworkers joke that they have taken life insurance out on me . Anyways, 99% of my collection is shark teeth and the location would be rather easy to assertain by 99% of the experience shark tooth dealers in the SE. I will think about doing some more labeling though Thanks

[Scylla]

Not to beat a dead horse but "location, location, location" I have a huge collection of useless rocks just sitting in boxes all mixed up because cardboard or even wooden boxes disintegrated and the contents got jumbled together. Now I can remember where hundreds of them are from, but not all. It takes hours at a time to recreate labels, etc. Now my newly collected stuff is sitting in tupperware, buckets, ziplocks, etc but with location labledbecause if my memory fails the species, age, etc can be easily recreated from knowledge of the location. A note about labeling systems too. I did have some rock and mineral specimins numbered and labeled, but lost the booklet with the numbering key for a few years. Look, even the best museums loose specimins so nothing is foolproof, but I'm trying to set up my collection so that it will still be of value if I get hit with a meteorite. (except the meteorite, I guess)

[MakoMeCrazy]

Thanks for all the replies, the information will definitely help as my collection grows.

[siteseer]

Scylla,

I don't think it's possible to overstate the importance of making a locality label for everything. This thread and any thread stressing site data labelling should be bumped at least a couple of times per year. It's even more important for anything rare, whether a rare taxon or rare for a locality, to have the locality data with the specimen.

Just yesterday, I finally boxed up some mammal teeth and bones bought in Tucson. They were all collected in a river gravel in the same area but some probably washed out of different formations. I keep the original dealer label in the box along with the ID labels made by a friend who identified the teeth for me. Horse teeth of the same genus/species are bagged together.

I still have stuff in plastic tubs and specimens lying around that need to be labelled.

Yes, I know of a museum that moved some material to different building, but somehow, the labels were lost or mixed up, so paleontologists threw everything in a dumpster. Some museums will also throw away donated fossils if they lack suitable locality labels.

Jason,

I know you think that nearly all of your collection could be figured out by other local dealers and you may be right for a general locality. Someone else could say "South Carolina river meg" or might even be reasonably sure of the river but only you know where the self-collected stuff came from exactly. If only for yourself, and if you don't want to have a locality label with each tooth, you should code-number your teeth and have a list of the numbers with the locality info. In the future you don't want to look at a tooth and then struggle to come up with where you found it.

Jess

Not to beat a dead horse but "location, location, location" I have a huge collection of useless rocks just sitting in boxes all mixed up because cardboard or even wooden boxes disintegrated and the contents got jumbled together. Now I can remember where hundreds of them are from, but not all. It takes hours at a time to recreate labels, etc. Now my newly collected stuff is sitting in tupperware, buckets, ziplocks, etc but with location labledbecause if my memory fails the species, age, etc can be easily recreated from knowledge of the location. A note about labeling systems too. I did have some rock and mineral specimins numbered and labeled, but lost the booklet with the numbering key for a few years. Look, even the best museums loose specimins so nothing is foolproof, but I'm trying to set up my collection so that it will still be of value if I get hit with a meteorite. (except the meteorite, I guess)