To other cowry enthusiasts on the CONCH-L server,
 
I knew that I would reach this issue of the HAWAIIAN SHELL NEWS
eventually. The Dec. 1990 issue has an item under RECENT FINDS
with a photo of a person holding an object purported to be a
Cypraea tigris of 8-1/4 inches in length.
 
It doesn't take much to realize that, with an established world record
of barely over six inches out of millions of collected tiger cowries,
this was a hoax. Imagine, those of you with an understanding of
Gaussian distributions, where this "specimen" would fall on such
curve.
 
It is being included only as a matter of completeness in the
cowry-related items... and as a warning to others, again, that
things too-good-to-be-true usually aren't true.
 
 
Aloha,
 
makuabob (a.k.a. Bob Dayle)