Polished Fossilised Wood Trinket Dish

Mixed group of rock specimens, including a smoky quartz. 2.46 kg total, 20.4 - 3.3 cm



Some of the specimens were found during the original official excavations in the Farnham area, Surrey, UK, which were conducted by Harold Falkner (1875-1963) and William Francis Rankine (c.1877-1962), who were instrumental in the excavation works and pit dwellings at sites including Six Bells, Frensham, Tilford, Thursley, Bagshot, and Waverley, amongst others, at and near Farnham in the 1930s and 1940s. Much of the material is now in the prestigious Farnham museum. The present part of the collection has been gifted to their good friend and Haselmere Parish Priest, Charles Borelli (c.1914-2000) of Farnham, who was part of the Borelli family from Italy, who emigrated from Lake Como in 1828 to set up the Borelli family watch and jewellery business; thence by family descent to his nephew.

Large point with bevelled edges, showing chevron-like crystal formations with contrasting banding. 717 grams, 19.5 cm



From Malawi. Property of a Bristol, UK, gentleman collector.

Featuring the top of the skull with an exposed left eye socket and part of the lower jaw also visible, a number of the cervical vertebrae present, as well as ribs and part of the right scapula. 5.75 kg, 36 cm



From the Guanling Biota formation, China. Previously with Shishang Corporation, Taiwan. From a West London gentleman collector; acquired from a professional fossil company in Taiwan.

Originally, ichthyosaur fossils were misidentified as ‘Saurian’, being either lizards or forms of crocodile. The term 'Ichthyosaur' was first used in 1817 by the German naturalist Karl Dietrich Eberhard Konig, and he did not publish the name until 1825. By the 1830s, the name Ichthyosaur was widely used.