Preserving And Displaying Your Fossils

If you appreciate the fine artistic and scientific significance of fossils, you understand the importance of properly preparing, cleaning, preserving, and displaying your treasured fossils. Whether you're a hobbyist who finds and collects trilobites, or a research scientist working for National Geographic, the needs of your fossils remain the same. Fossils will stay in best condition if they are properly cared for. This preserves the value of a fossil, which in some cases can be significant and in all cases is going to be more than your average chunk of old rock.

There are hundreds of dusty old bins filled with some of the world's most magnificent fossils. Unfortunately, many of these fossils will never been seen in museums. They will never be admired by friends or sold for their true value. Fossilized shark teeth, for example, must be carefully cleaned to bring out their colors, shape, and worth. A properly prepared fossil is worth hundreds of times what it would be worth if it was just sitting on the window sill of the basement storage room, subjected to sunlight and dust and decay.

The worth of a fossil can never be accurately measured until it has been cleaned and prepared. The process of cleaning, preserving, and preparing fossils is a delicate art. If one is too rough, the entire fossil can be scratched, broken, or destroyed. Working with fossils is much like working with uncut jewels. If someone attacks cleaning a fossil without knowing enough about it, the fossil can be destroyed or it will loose a lot of its value.

There are many economical fossil preparation and cleaning companies. Many of them are small mom & pop shops, often operating in areas close to high density of fossils. When selecting someone to clean your fossil and prepare it for display or storage, make sure it is a highly qualified person of reputable quality. Many professors at University are willing to work on these projects for negotiable rates. Check in the Evolutionary Biology department at Universities. You can likely find a few professors at Universities who might be willing to clean and prepare your fossilized shark teeth or other notable finds, or can recommend some former students or graduate students who would do work at a non-inflated rate.

It is wiser to find poor or middle class academics with the technical know how to work on your fossils than an unknown so-called self-taught "genius" who may not be as honest or as knowledgeable as his or her website or eBay profile implies. Your best bet is to find a professor to recommend someone to clean your fossils, someone connected to a reputable university, such as the University of Chicago.