I have personally always been most interested in the best representatives
of a given species I can affordably aquire.  However, it is clear that
there is a large market for freaks based on the prices I've seen (some of
these shells being EXTREMELY expensive) for many relatively common
species. To the best of my knowledge this is best represented in Cypraea,
but also shells like Strombus, Lambis, Cymatium with extra digits, siphon
canals, etc also seem rather popular freaks.

Anyway, with such an active market it would seem that one could fairly
easily generate freaks with live specimens in aquariums after damaging the
mantle. I was just wondering if this is just my active imagination or if
this is actually going on.  After myself running into doctored shells
(baked, repaired, etc) I was just wondering if this practice runs into
working with the live shells themselves.

Thanks.

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