Griffin's fossil collection.

Great stuff. I was expecting a Spinosaurus tooth in there as they seem to be common as muck - indeed I have 2 of them (well, one (which looks like yours) is a lot more convincing than the other, which is pretty tiny...). That big rock with the various gastropod impressions is fantastic. In fact, so's the big trilobite rock. A really nice collection.

very very cool! that edmontosaurus tooth is superb!
thanks for sharing

there's a store downtown that has this great crab shell fossil, it's the entire top of the shell. it's several hundred dollars if I remember correctly, but I want to get it sometime...

Very nice collection!!!

Do you frequent shark river/big brook ? I go a few times a year. If you haven't been you should go, I bet you'd love it.

I love Calvert. That is where I am close to now, and do most of my picking these days. I have a hefty collection of meg teeth thanks to that place Those snail shell curls next to the Exogyra (which looks like Big Brook material) look like the Ecphora sp I am used to seeing down at Calvert.

"and an entire 8 inch long skeleton imbeded in a rock of a small marine reptile (which also didn't have an exact name but it looked sorta like a Nothasaur). The skeleton was $250."

I bet it was a fake, (and no, probably not even a composite, like "archeoraptor" was, but a 100% pure fake) Almost all those things you see for sale are. Same with "dinosaur eggs" - so many fake fossils for sale out there, one has to be extremely careful not to get suckered into buying junk, as junk predominates that market.
www.paleodirect.com/fakekeichousaurfossils.htm

Maybe I am just jaded, but in my experience, any expo or show you go to is full of junk vendors, so you have to be careful, and know what you are buying - the more you know, the safer you are as a buyer.

The teeth you have are almost surely legit, (They are dirt common for the "lower grade" specimens of the spino teeth, (that said, yours is fairly nice, and because of that would cost more then many of the ugly ones I see all the time) all coming out of Morocco, and for the most part aren't worth faking, and decent inexpensive hadrosaurid teeth are not that hard to come by either - again, I would have expected to pay more for that one - its nice quality) - Being that its at the Hamburg show, and the only one vendor is there, (I have looked at his prices before, and can assure the chinese fossils he was selling are nothing but JUNK), his prices were probably somewhat inflated.

The "cheap" little fossils are often legit - (though sometimes not the case, again, Morocco & china) and spino teeth, sharks teeth, smaller imperfect trilobites, many brachipods, etc, you are pretty safe with.

Rock and gem shows are MUCH better places to buy fossils, at least regarding competitive pricing. Be warned, there are just as many slimy, scummy, scammers at those, as there are selling WC and sick herps as healthy CBBs at herp shows. To be fair to the rock and gem resellers, some of them honestly believe what they are selling is legit - Most don't buy to resell while searching for authentication - they look for the cheapest price, buy, and flip. It just happens that often the cheaper materials - are fakes. Where they get slimy is when they ASSURE you what you are buying is 100% real, and act offended when you call them on that not being the case.

Generally any "higher end" Chinese or Moroccan fossil is seriously suspect, and really unless you know what to look for, err on the side of caution - Those aren't the only fakes though, and generally, if the price is too good to be true, and all - it is.

Mind you, there is nothing wrong with buying a cast, (I have many, and prefer them to real fossils in many cases) or something like that fake Chinese Keichousaur, or composite Moroccan trilobite (AKA “bondo bug"), if you like the look of it, and know its a fake, and have it as a replica piece, but paying more then, at most, 50.00 for a really nice fake one is a complete waste of your money.

Some of the fakes seem quite convincing. I know EBAY is brimming with fossils, and so many of them are overpriced junk, or flat out fakes. Many people who collect fossils don't know how to identify real fossils, or know what to look for, (and in the case of a good fake, it can be VERY difficult to tell, and requires much more serious authentication - some are made partly from real specimens patched together like the composite case of "archeoraptor", making things even more confusing and difficult - And generally that's what the folks selling fakes count on. I am pretty good at identifying fakes...and when in doubt, unless the are willing to give me a money back grantee after genuine authentication...I just won't buy.

www.paleodirect.com is actually a good site to buy from. I have never been disappointed with my fossil purchases from them, and you don't have to worry if what you have purchased online is going to be the same thing you actually ordered when it arrives.

www.fossildealers.com/fossil-fakes-and-frauds.html

Minerals too...
geology.com/news/2009/guide-to-common-mineral-fakes.shtml

(I'd be careful about that crab sepp - Ive seen bucket loads of those things as fakes too, with prices in the 2-300.00 category.)