How to tell the difference from real articulated triassic reptile Keichousaurus from one that is faked in China for the American market.

Keichousaurus arrived broken in 3 large pieces

The first Keichousaurus arrived in the early part of April from Ebay Sellers with an Akron OH address. It is widely known to avoid buying fossils from Chinese dealer because many of them are very doctored are just plain fake. When this fossil arrived in a broken condition in three major places and I contacted the dealer I became aware that they were actually Chinese dealers using the Akron address as a cover or subterfuge.  I had looked at their other Keiches for sale and notices that they had another nice looking one.  I explained to them that the broken Keichousaurus upon repair had lost quite a bit of it’s resale value and could they work me a deal on this second Keich that we will refer to as Keich b. They were very polite and offer me the Keich b at a very reasonable price of just over $100.

Note: Pictures of Keichousarus b they sent.

Possible counterfeit (faked) Keichousaurus

When the Keich arrived it looked somewhat bogus. It looked to perfect for one thing and it was painted all over with black paint. I even took it to a friend of mine, a Doctor of Geology and Paleontology for his opinion and he thought it looked real, but I was not sure.

Keich b, "Is it real or is it counterfeit (faked)?"

The next day I did a test. I have delicate fossil preparation tools; an arrow air scribe and light abrasive blasting device. First I took the first fossil that arrived broken and use the arrow air scribe to go all along the edge of one of the femur bones. I wear a jeweler’s visor to do this work. When I got close near the middle of the bone a small piece chipped off and I could see bone cells inside. Next I took it to the air abrasive tool and cleaned up all along the area I had done the air scribe work. Through magnification it was very obvious that there was a distinct separation between the matrix and the actual femur bone. This was very good news. This fossil was not faked. Note close up of the work I did with Keich a.

Closeup of Keichousarus a test results

The following picture will show the same test being done with Keichousaurus b;  the fossil that appeared to be counterfeited. Note what happened when the air abrasive was lightly applied to clean up the work that the air scribe had done.

Counterfeit Keichousarus offered for sale as genuine 230 m.y.a. fossil

Here follows the ad placed before these Keichousaurus fossils that these Chinese Ebay dealer are pushing. Notice all the errors and the use of a blatant lie to fool the unsuspecting. Caveat Emptor!

Ad lures buyers into thinking that other sites on Ebay sell faked fossils but theirs are all real.

When I confronted these Chinese Ebay dealers with my findings they told me that they only sold 100% real Keichousaurus fossils.  When I emailed them the two close up test I had done they relented and asked what they could do to clear this up.  I accepted a large partitial repayment for the second bogus fossil and kept the fossil to use as a teaching tool to warn others of trickery related to fossils that come out of third world countries such a China and Morocco. I hope this information has been useful.    Sincerely,  Stephen Jones in St. Louis along the Mississippi River