What is it?

It’s a little easier if you are at a rock shop or a dealer’s table at a show. If you see two or more specimens that are broken identically or have the same etch (cleaning) marks then likely those are fake. To me, based on the picture it looks real. The chips missing are the color of the rock and are fracturing in a natural pattern. IDK which one it is though.

@mackenzie-smith thanks, I’ve never noticed it so I must’ve been young when I got it. I think I got it at the Winter Gardens in Sunderland a long time ago tbh

Another thing I just thought of is looking for a seem that could result from some casting processes. Generally speaking, the fake ones come from Madagascar (though there are plenty of real ones from there too). Those have an orange matrix (rock component). While I don’t know ammonites that well it doesn’t look like something that would be found in either North America or Madagascar and the UK has plenty of ammonites to so it’s probably locally sourced.

Ok thank you.

@mackenzie-smith do you mean the fake ones from Madagascar that have a resemblance to Perisphinctes.

It’s likely plant material but the preservation isn’t good enough to say which plant.

what makes you say “likely” plant material

@lucy-miraglia plants preserve as carbon films pretty often, which would be the really dark bands.

thanks so much. I’m brand new to this and I enjoy learning

Hi @ginger-merker, the one on the bottom left is definitely a brachiopod. The one all the way on the right is an external mold of something I can’t quite place. The rock on the upper left is just weathered oddly, as far as I can tell. @mackenzie-smith might be able to help with the ID of the external mold fossil.