Here is another article from the NY Daily News:

Daily News (New York)
January 30, 1997, Thursday
News; Pg.  40
DEALER'S SHELL SELL OVER NET WAS A REAL STEAL, HE'LL ADMIT
By HELEN KENNEDY

He swiped a sea shell and sold it beyond our shores.

Now the sea shell seller may hear a slamming cell door.

Martin Gill, a Miami shell dealer, plans to plead guilty next week to
stealing a rare specimen from the Museum of Natural History while he was
cataloguing a collection.

He faces up to five years in prison and may have to shell out a $ 250,000
fine.

Gill, 49, was freed on $ 10,000 bail yesterday.

Cops busted Gill's shell game, netting the dealer after he sold the valuable
little snail shell to a Belgian dealer he met surfing the Internet. The dealer
paid $ 12,000.

Federal prosecutors say Gill stumbled across the shell while doing an
appraisal for the museum.

He quickly realized it was so rare that there are only a handful like it in
existence.

Found in the Red Sea in 1982, the delicate 21/2-inch-long brown, gray and
white shell once housed a Chimaeria incomparabilis deep-water snail.

The shell is priceless to scientists studying snail evolution.

"It's sort of a missing link in the evolution of a particular group of
shells," said M. G. Harasewych, mollusks curator at the Smithsonian, which has
one of only three of the shells in the nation.

Gill pocketed the specimen, advertised it on the Net and sold it to the
dealer in Brussels, who resold it to a dealer in Indonesia for $ 20,000.



On 9/24/06, Stemke Douglas <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I purcahase Peter Dance's "Rare Shells" some time ago and the previous owner
> had the article in it.
>
> "Rare Shell washed up on Internet" by David Adams, Miami (sorry there is no
> date or paper on the article I have)
>
> I'm too slow to type the full article so I'll paraphrase:
>
> Martin Gill (49) a maximum penalty of five years in jail and $250,000 in
> fines. He was accused of stealing the shell from New York's Museum of
> Natural History.  He was 'a seashell expert from S. Miami hired 'last
> August' to appraise its collection.  According to his prosecutors he took a
> specimen of Chimaeria incomparabis which he sold via the internet to a
> Belgian buyer for $12,500.  He then sold it to a collector in Jakarta for
> $20,000.
>
> The museum hired a private detective to trace the shell which was found in
> the Red Sea in 1982.  The detective saw the ad on the internet which led
> them to Mr. Gill.
>
> The article ends with a description of the shell.
>
> Hope that helps.
>
> Doug
>
>
> I recall seeing an article about the stolen Chimaeria incomparabilis.  There
> was an illustration with it.  Does anyone recall the source?  And, what ever
> happened to the shell?
>
> Kay Peterson
>
>
> ________________________________
> Get your email and more, right on the new Yahoo.com
>
>

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