I'm trying to include more locality and habitat data in my catalogue. On the
other hand, I've dropped the exact date and just give month and year. The
exact date isn't essential, as far as I can tell.

David Kirsh

On Thu, 31 Oct 2002 19:57:46 -0000 Simon Aiken <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Thanks, James, for raising this important
> topic.  Publicity in this way
> might just help matters...
>
> I think things ARE improving, gradually.
> Dealers perhaps didn't realise
> the importance of good data 10 years ago, but
> they certainly do now.  I
> know that I've been able to persuade my own
> collectors to give me much
> better data than they were doing 3 or 4 years
> ago.  But shells being
> recycled from old collections are always going
> to crop up with weak or
> "dubious" data.
>
> To be fair to shell dealers, we do often have
> to hide the collector's
> name purely to protect our own livelihoods.
> Collectors in Third World
> countries may be unwilling to give detailed
> locality data because they
> rely solely on those sources for their own
> livelihoods.  Not an ideal
> situation, true, but it's understandable.
>
> From my own experience, dealers also need to
> beware of the dilemma of
> "being told what you want to hear", when asking
> a native collector for
> accurate data.  The classic instance is being
> told that something is
> from "very deep water", when the collector
> believes that this makes a
> shell more desirable.  It might be a very rare
> and desirable shell from
> SHALLOW water.
>
> My two pence' worth...
>