At the annual auction of the Houston Conchologist Society I was the only bidder for a bag labeled “#84 Cerith Collection.” I won the bag for a bid of $1.00 and when I got the 10 or so shells home I identified and labeled most of them, but one of the larger shells that at first glance looked like the ceriths I had collected in French Polynesia, Fiji, Tahiti, and Tonga, in the 1970s puzzled me. I searched through all my books for that area of the South Pacific and, sure enough, there were several ceriths that looked similar to my mystery shell, but none matched exactly, so I labeled it “Cerithium sp” H.M.S. #84 Cerith Collection.” I put it in one of the boxes with the shells obtained at the auction for further study at a later time. By taking an average I estimate this shell cost me about 10 cents.
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