Welcome fellow micro-head Kobie!
Since I do mostly beach collecting, I've been veering towards microshells
more and more. I'm grappling with the problem that micros are difficult to
identify because they've been more neglected and also there are few
up-to-date books available.
(Incidentally, for all you American shellers, I've been looking to get a
copy of Abbott's 2nd edition American Seashells. Finally, found one for
sale through the site for alibris.com. They only want $480! I've also
e-mailed Jerry Herasewych (sp?) of the Smithsonian to ask when he might
have a 3rd out. He hasn't responded yet.)
I very much admire and encourage your efforts to get your shell photos on
the web. There are a few such sites and my personal shell utopia includes
the vision of having an international comprehensive identifier of shells on
the web.
I'd like to set up some swaps of micros if possible. I'm about to go to
Kerala in India for 2 weeks and will have one day stopover in Kuwait as
well.
(Still no one with beach experience in Kerala out there?)
--David Kirsh

>Hello everyone,
>
>I am also a new subscriber. I have follow the messages for 2 days now before
>'introducing' myself.
>My name is Kobie du Preez and I'm from South Africa. I live in Centurion
>near Pretoria and Johannesburg; far away from the nearest ocean. I have been
>collecting since 1995. My main interest is any micro-shell that I can find,
>and I'm also interested in land and water shells. I haven't decided yet in a
>family for specialization, so on the moment I collect everything.
>
>One of my other hobbies is programming, and I have written a program to
>maintain a database for shell collecting, printing labels and many more
>functions.
>
>Any micro-shellers out there?????  I have my own stereo microscope with a
>camera adapter, and hopefully you will be able to see some of my work in
>about 2 weeks time on my website that I'm busy setting up!
>
>I'm married, have two girls, aged 11 and 8. My pets include live land
>snails, a dog and a cat. We are also 4x4-nature-lovers and go to very
>interesting places.
>
>Happy shelling for those at the ocean, rivers or anywhere else..
>
>Kobie du Preez