Andrew,
 
Interesting that you settled on muricids as one of the most popular
groups.  I have always liked them and thought they were popular but just
a year or two (or three, or...) ago I seem to remember a note by Ross
Mayhew about the difficulty of selling murex shells.  At the time I
thought they must fall behind cypraea and cones in popularity plus they
can be much tougher to clean, easy to chip, difficult to pack (at least
for the large ones), and maybe higher in price on average (only if you
do not include the astronomically priced cones like C. adamsoni or
similar cypraea like C. leucodon).  So maybe the numbers of muricids
pictured does not reflect the numbers collected or sold.  A dealer with
a way with computers and his database could probably tell us the
percentage sold of different families.
 
Well, time to go buy a tree to replace one that gave up the ghost this
winter.  In a week or so we will need all of the shade we can get.
 
A final note, new subject -- mail.  I am beginning to think I have lost
my first package in the mail.  It was sent to Canada and we are in the
forth week with no delivery.  I just sent another package to the same
person, so we will see if it is also months in route.  Regrettably, the
first package was a shell I only had one of -- so no replacement if it
indeed never shows up.  I did learn that if you want to register the
package you can't have slick mailing tape all over it (as I always do
because like many of you I am reusing a dealer's box).
 
Tom Eichhorst in New Mexico, USA