Retail Buyers’ Guide to Wholesale Fossil Rock

As an exporter of fossil rock, I have learned a lot about buying wholesale fossil fish from various resources around the world.  One of the things that always surprises me is how so many retailers don’t really know what they are buying, nor how to educate their customers about the types of fossil fish and rock.

Before you buy wholesale fossil fish or wholesale fossil rock from a fossil distributor, ask for more information about their resources and how they classify their products.  Any information that you can pass along to your customers will benefit your business and build loyalty among collectors.

First, let’s take a look at how most fossil fish are classified.  They are divided into four classifications, which refer to the names of the each fish species.

• Agnatha: dating back hundreds of millions of years, these are the most primitive of all vertebrates; Agnatha lacked true jaws or paired fins. Today’s lamprey fish are an example of how this classification has evolved.
• Placoderms: an extinct species of fish, placoderms had primitive jaws, paired fins and either armor-plated head shields or think spines and scales.
• Chondricthyes: This classification, which includes sharks and rays, has cartilage skeletons, well-developed teeth and open gill slits. One of the most commonly found fish fossil is made from their fossilized body parts (usually teeth).
• Osteichthyes:  The most widely found fish fossils, osteichthyes are a very diverse group, including fish with bony skeletons, well-developed fins, sleek tails and scales.  Most of the fish in today’s waterways are osteichthyes.

Wholesale fossil fish and fossil rocks in general are a popular collectors’ item, and most of them originate from Brazil, Germany, Canada, Lebanon and China.  Your customers will want to invest in these natural scientific artifacts as they build collections of display quality fossils for themselves or their children.

As a fossil distributor, PikesPeakRock.com carries a variety of wholesale fossil rocks from some of the world’s most prominent fossil sources.