Am i being collectively ignored, or does anybody else agree with me that
a shell in a collection can mean many things to the collector, scientist
or educator, even if its data is less than perfect??  Let's not make
people with "non-purist" attititudes regarding  our hobby/passion feel
badly  or that their collections are somehow "inferior" to absolutely
"environmentally-friendly" collections with great data for every
shell!!  I have a streak of elitism myself, but a few of the recent
posts here, have sustaatially diminished it.
        Yes, shells conveniently tossed up on the shore by hurricanes ar
eminantly collectable- one can often obtain some very interesting
species  in this manner.  Good "dead-collected" specimens are only
differnt from live-collected ones in the amount of data they possess,
and the strong  bias in the shell world against dead-collected specimens
has always struck me as being a bit "elitist".  With a rare species
especially, sometimes a dead one is all you might ever get, or be able
to afford.
                                                                                -Ross Mayhew,
                                your "not-quite-ideal-but-trying-hard" Schooner Specimen dealer.