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6
American Seashells
that Cuming returned for more only to find that the reef had sunk during an
earthquake, and that since then no other specimens have been found. How-
ever, the species is apparently widespread throughout the East Indian region.
Specimens have turned up since Cuming's day at Cebu in the Philippines, Amboina
Island, and Piru Bay in the Dutch East Indies. A four-inch specimen
was found on the shore at Wahaai, Ceram Island, after a storm in 1896. In
addition to the existing twenty-three specimens, three were destroyed during
World War II and eight, formerly known to exist, are missing. A search in
grandmother's attic or along some East Indian beach will doubtless bring
others to light.
Collectors of fancy seashells are constantly in search of specimens of
outstanding qualities, and although a number of species are well-known for
their high value or unusual beauty, the standards by which we judge their
rarity and attractiveness are considerably varied. The differences in our
appreciation of beauty are natural enough, for the colors, forms and textures
of seashells are numerous enough to offer appeal to almost any type of aesthetic
appreciation. The man who covets a brilliantly patterned Olive shell of rich
golden-red colors may see little in a tiny white shell which another collector
treasures for its intricate snow-flake sculpturings.
For many conchologists rarity is gauged by the top price that a specimen
may bring; for others the important judging point is the scarcity of the spe-
cies in nature or perhaps the rarity of specimens in collections. Left-handed,
double-mouthed or distorted specimens, like misprints in stamps, are highly
valued by many veteran collectors. There are literally hundreds of truly rare
species, but most of these are deep-sea shells, some of which are known only
from a single specimen. Most of these are small and not particularly attrac-
tive. The high-priced shells are found among the showy genera, like the
cones, Pleurotomaria slit-shells, volutes, murex shells, scallops and cowries.
The Golden Cowrie is the most popular among the so-called rarities, the
present-day price ranging from $20 to $60. Some species may be considered
rarities for years and command very high prices, until they are collected in
large quantities. The Goliath Conch (Stromhus goliath) is worth about
$200 today, but collecting in northern Brazil would undoubedly bring them
to light in great quantities and hence would lower the price to a few dollars.
The Precious Wentletrap Shell {Epitonium sealare or pretiosum) of the
western Pacific was in such demand years ago that Chinese found it profit-
able to make counterfeits out of rice paste. The species is now considered
reasonably common and is low-priced, but genuine rice counterfeits are now
rare and equal in value to the price of the first-known shell specimens.
Some of the most interesting threads of man's early history have been
woven around the trade routes of primitive peoples and their dispersal of
shells. The discovery by archaeologists in 1895 of the Red Helmet Shell