Brooke,

What you are doing is perhaps what most of us do to identify a shell -- dig
through the best books you have and try for that match.  No match?  Then we
try for what seems like a reasonable variation.  The RKK book is a great one
on Pacific cones because it shows so much variety with just about every
species.  However, it doesn't show all of the variety possible, so in the
end you must decide if this shell could be "the shape of number xx but has
the color pattern of yy."  Locale data is extremely helpful, but we have all
seen shells discovered well outside of the book limits.

Everyone from collector to dealer to hobbiest tries their best for correct
IDs -- but errors happen.  Personally, I'd go with the given identification
and just include a small note that you think it may be C. whatever.  The
reason I say go with the ID is the folks down the chain (dealer and
collector) have seen many shells from this given locale and usually have a
better idea of what fits within a specie's parameters.  Obviously they can
be wrong and most dealers and collectors will readily admit it.  But you are
looking at a single shell and trying to match it with four or six
photographs (usually only a single photograph for other than Pacific cones)
while the dealer has a dozen or more and the collector  has who knows how
many.  So the odds favor them.

The next best bet is to send your shell (if you can not scan it and send a
picture) to an expert in the family you are working with.  I've had lots of
such help from folks on Conch-L.  If you don't have a scanner, most any
small computer store will scan it for you. Just ask them to put it into a
JPG format with no more than 100k memory used.

This confusion with IDs is part of the fasination of shells.  If you want to
go further with this, or need more help, contact me off line at
[log in to unmask] and I will see what else we can do to figure out what this
shell is.

Tom Eichhorst in New Mexico, USA