While I generally agree, perfection is pleasing to view.
My collection would be missing several families.

One " Stellaria solaris paucispinosa (Kosuge & Nomoto) " is the only
shell in
the family and it is in 'good' condition.  It is rare enough that it is
fine for me.
I don't think I'd pick one up unless there was a gaggle (what are shells
called ?!)
traversing in front of me.

It seems to be a Red Sea or regional shell that found its way to Kwajalein.
(Oil tanker I suppose).  Kwaj is a Mid Pacific refueling for Coast Guard
and Navy.

It is one that I have no idea where it came from.  It was collected by
my Mom.
I'll never know at this time.  So it is on display at the local library
with 200+
species

Sometimes 'glitter' and 'gold' shines above all defects.

Martin


Guido Poppe wrote:
> This is a very interesting topic.
>
> A collection of perfect shells gives long lasting pleasure to look
> at.  You never get bored. It is my personal experience that defect
> shells attract the look to the defect too often, and when mixed with
> perfect shells they take down the whole collection and one gets a
> messy impression and in the very long run one may get tired of this
> collection.
>
> On the other hand, it is impossible to make a quite complete
> collection of a given family without accepting imperfect shells: many
> species have never been collected in perfect condition. A collection
> of Conidae with perfect lips will only be a fraction of the complete
> family. 70 % are virtually impossible to get with perfect lips,
> without sponge holes or growth lines.
>
> My personal satisfaction giving solution is: I put only perfect
> shells on display, so I never get tired. The study material is stored
> away in a systematic way. Unless it concerns a fantastic species
> which I want to see, even imperfect.
>
> As for the markets: paying customers expect the best possible
> quality. But we think there is a market for defect shells. Possibly
> we will open a line at very cheap prices to get rid of the tons of
> stocked away material which is not perfect, but top interesting for
> the scientific  collection. I would appreciate the opinion of the
> shellers here: are you interested to buy cheap defected shells ? And
> do you prefer to buy "sets" (ex: 25 Olango shells for 10 $) or
> individual pieces at 1 $ or so ?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Guido
>
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--
Martin H. Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
TSRA, Endowed; NRA LOH & Patron Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot's Medal.
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder
IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member.
http://lufkinced.com/

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