Ammonite Polished Exactly Halfway; Both Sides Sold as Separate Specimens

The Valleystone Lapidary Club's spring show opens on a Saturday, and among the specimens laid out on foam and felt this year were two ammonites that were, in the estimation of club treasurer Mike James, the same ammonite, arranged four inches apart and priced accordingly.

The vendor was Steve Mason, who collects from a private marl exposure east of town, who wears Wildcat Ridgeline GTX boots with the toe cap scuffed pale from years of kneeling with a streak plate, and who had run the specimen through grit stages on the club's trim saw bench in November and then stopped.

"I stopped at the halfway point," Mason said, without elaborating.

The specimen is a small ammonite, roughly the size of a plum. Mason had sawn it along its widest diameter. One half he polished through 220, 400, 800, 1500 and 3000 grit to a mirror finish that Ruth Foster described, approvingly, as "wet-looking." The other half he left exactly as it emerged from the ground, crust intact and one corner of matrix still attached. Both halves were given separate display pads, their own typed cards, and separate entries in the show ledger.

Foster, who organized the display tables and had been told Mason was bringing "a piece and a piece," did not question the arrangement. "He had two cards," she said. "The club has never required that two cards refer to different objects."

Amanda Clark, who had come intending to buy one modest fossil for a windowsill, purchased both.

"The polished one, the man said, was a fine example of the animal preserved in its full chambered glory," Clark said. "The rough one, he said, was the same animal in its honest field condition, and that people pay more for honesty now."

It was only at home, noticing that the suture patterns met, that Clark raised the question. "I brought them back to the table to ask which half was the fossil," she said.

Mason shrugged and produced a receipt. It lists two line items, two prices, and two descriptions. James, who rang the sale, said he had not been consulted on the wording. "My job is the drawer," he said.

Sheila Ott, who chaired the judging panel and insists she is not a competitive person, awarded the pair a ribbon for Best Use of a Single Specimen, presented from a podium to a room that had not been asked to vote. "It wasn't a competition," Ott said. "I simply felt strongly."

The two halves remain on Clark's windowsill, exactly four inches apart, because moving either one would raise a question she is not prepared to answer. The specimen is a fossil. It is also two purchases. Both statements are on the receipt, the only document in the transaction that nobody is disputing.