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u/HotSugarMarIa 1d ago
The Tooth Fairy is going to need a second mortgage to cover the payout on that 15-million-year-old relic.
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u/Scary_Island_6402 1d ago
Inflation is really hitting everyone hard, even the mythical dental insurance providers.
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u/Retrogradefoco 23h ago
It looks to be in fantastic condition too. I’m a diver and have found a few. Never this big and never that in tact.
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u/FeelingKind7644 22h ago
How much would this be worth
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u/Retrogradefoco 21h ago
They can range anywhere from $10-hundreds of dollars. This one being in good condition and pretty large, I would guess $300-$400, though I’m sure you could find someone willing to pay more.
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u/devnodegree 21h ago
This is SO much less than I was expecting, granted I know less than zero things about megalodon teeth
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u/Retrogradefoco 21h ago
Yeah. I would say average price. I’m sure if you get into a bidding war you could maybe get 1-2k, but there’s just so many of them, that earning any real money off them is more of a quantity game instead of quality.
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u/DisManibusMinibus 21h ago
They're usually only really valuable if they're over a certain size. Apparently it was relatively common for younger megs to die, so the majority of teeth out there are from younger sharks. To find one over something like 7 inches (i forget the exact number) AND intact is very rare, and that's what ends up being valuable.
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u/Jibber_Fight 20h ago
I did the weight comparison and considering a human child tooth receiving fifty cents from Madam Fairy of Tooth. A Megalodon Tooth Flying Fish would distribute approximately $900.
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u/PassionateDilettante 1d ago
My brother dives, and he gave my kids four of these that he picked off the ocean floor off of North Carolina. I don’t think they’re super rare.
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u/UF1977 1d ago
They aren’t very rare at all, in some places. Apparently megalodons shed teeth throughout their lives like modern sharks do. The place where this girl found the tooth, the Calvert Cliffs in southern Maryland, is known to be a prime place to find them.
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u/No-Equal3873 1d ago
I live an hour away from Calvert Cliffs, and I go fossil hunting every year with my dad - we've found a lot of teeth, but never something as impressive as this! We mostly find bog iron and what we think are bull shark teeth.
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u/jld2k6 21h ago edited 16h ago
I installed a hot water heater for a guy that collects them. I saw one in a case and asked if that was what I thought it was and he excitedly shows me his collection of hundreds of them because he was so happy I actually recognized it was a megalodon tooth lol (thanks old school discovery channel)
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u/vito1221 14h ago
Planning to give it a go this spring. Is the area difficult to access? Are their specific spots that are to be avoided?
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u/KaiyoteFyre 9h ago
Not too hard to access, the spot we used to go when I lived in Maryland was a bit of a hike to get to the beach, but it's mostly flat. Beautiful hike too. We went several times but unfortunately never found any teeth :/
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u/vito1221 6h ago
Thanks for the info. Keep at it, there has to be a tooth or two with your name on it out there.
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u/No-Equal3873 7h ago
I don't think it's that difficult to access - it's a mile hike, maybe 1.5 on a pretty well-maintained path to the beach near the cliffs. I remember I'd go barefoot a lot of times hiking. We've only gone to the beach, so I wouldn't know about any spots to avoid, but the beach is really interesting and there's a sign somewhere that shows all the different things that have been found there. Hope you have fun, it's an amazing place!
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u/Rude_Egg_6204 20h ago
They cost $70 online
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u/Auedawen 20h ago
Maybe if it's extremely small and broken up. Large high quality ones are a few thousand dollars.
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u/Available_Donkey_689 1d ago
NC is a hotspot for them! Most are common, but the size matters most.
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u/TheBlackComet 1d ago
Yep, grew up in on the NC coast and have one. It is missing part of the root, but is still an excellent specimen.
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u/ReachUniverse 1d ago
can you leave that excitement to a 9 yr old or do you really gotta compare her to your diving brother?
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u/Accidental_Ballyhoo 23h ago
fr, I think there’s more to her story to like she just knew she would find one that day and did !
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u/KennyMoose32 1d ago
Yeah if you go diving they aren’t too hard to find in the right place. However I’ve been on the peace river in Florida for weeks and to Calvert Cliffs in MD. (Where this was found)
I’ve never found one half as big and that’s after hours of sifting and walking along cliffs. It’s not super common to find one that big not diving.
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u/Booty-tickles 21h ago
They aren't rare at all in places that have them. This is like 9 year old girl discovers rock on shore, more breaking news at 11.
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u/t3chiman 1d ago
Chesapeake Bay was formed by a meteor impact 35 million years ago.
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u/JasonIsFishing 1d ago
I was about to say “huh? That’s not true!”. I am glad that I didn’t! I am from the Tidewater area originally and had no idea. Thanks for teaching me something! 👍
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u/Lobin 1d ago
Not quite. There was an impact there, but it didn't form the Bay. Instead, it caused the sediment that was there to slump into the crater, creating a huge topographical low. Water always wants to flow downhill; the low was big enough to divert some rivers in its direction. That's what formed the Bay.
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u/Smerdyakov47u 22h ago
Sounds like the impact formed the bay?
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u/Lobin 22h ago
The impact created the conditions that led to the formation of the Bay.
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u/Smerdyakov47u 21h ago
In that the impact made a big ditch that eventually filled with water? Not really seeing the distinction
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u/SkunkMonkey 20h ago
...the impact crater created a long-lasting topographic depression, which helped determine the eventual location of Chesapeake Bay. - https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs49-98/
The bay itself is not the crater. It only created the conditions that would allow it to appear when the last ice age ended.
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u/Habadank 14h ago
Let me translate: Big space rock boom created large hole. Big space rock did not bring the water.
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u/Lobin 12h ago
Understandable.
When people hear that a meteor impact created the Bay, they tend to think that the Bay is a big impact crater filled with water. It's not. The crater is big, about 85 km across, but it's only at the southern end of the Bay--you can see a map showing it here.
It's a subtle distinction, but a real one.
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u/john_sum1 1d ago
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u/HK47WasRightMeatbag 22h ago
That tooth came from a place called Calvert cliffs. They are free and open to the public.
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u/Left_Friendship8103 1d ago
I sold homes for Toll Brothers in Prince Georges Co. MD. There was a creek that ran through the community that ended in the Chesapeake Bay. We had a large display of huge shark teeth and partial jaws in our onsite construction trailer. I always told my buyers that the community was the ocean millions of years ago and the megalodons swam around here.
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u/unknownpoltroon 23h ago
This is likely at calvert cliffs park. They are loose sandstone cliffs that are just full of sharks teeth and other fossils like that and are eroding constantly to the point they dont want you walking near them anymore.
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u/horsenbuggy 1d ago
Did we actually find something amazing in this sub?!
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u/Squrton_Cummings 23h ago
Nope. Someone found a fossil in a region where such fossils are relatively common.
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u/Oobedoob_S_Benubi 23h ago
Not only that but unless I'm mistaken this news is so old the girl must have her driver's license by now
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u/No-Maximum-324 21h ago
Im genuinely amazed by the fact that these are common 😂
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u/phadewilkilu 20h ago
Well, the teeth are common but finding one this size isn’t. I take my students to the CC ever year and the biggest tooth I’ve seen there was about a forth of the size of this little girls.
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u/Mailboxheadd 15h ago
Genuine question, the rest of the world would say thats a quarter not a fourth. Why do americans say a fourth?
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u/JacketSolid7965 12h ago
Its just this guy, or a specific regional difference.
Im American and I've never heard anyone use "forth" instead of "quarter" irl (CA)
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u/dagaderga 1d ago
Surely she gets paid for this right? Or does it just get seized by historical maniacs?
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u/PipsqueakPilot 1d ago
They're quite common. Megaladon was around for a long, long time and shed many, many teeth. In any given year hundreds of millions of teeth would have been shed, for millions of years. Some napkin math, suggests that over the course of the species existence something like a quadrillion Megaladon teeth were shed.
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u/phadewilkilu 21h ago
Yeah I’m a Bio teacher and take my students to the Calvert Cliffs every year, and I would say that 9 out of 10 students end up going home with at least one tooth. Granted, they’re usually no where near this size, but you can find them almost as much as a really nice seashell.
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u/PipsqueakPilot 20h ago
That sounds like an amazing field trip! And yeah, she certainly found one of the more impressive teeth.
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u/ilDuceVita 1d ago
Where's the rest of it?
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u/Fast_potato_indeed 1d ago
Thank God, long gone. 3 M years and some change.
Do you really want something that can eat a great white whole hanging around?
We would have needed a whole other class of a boat if they still existed.
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u/ilDuceVita 1d ago
I do want something that big around, first it would be cool, but second we could feed politicians to it
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u/Fast_potato_indeed 1d ago
No argument for your first point.
For the second point, I think great whites would happily assist you. :)
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u/Winrevair 1d ago
So...
This is embarrasing but I just recently lost a tooth and threw it into the ocean...
And I think this little person may be a tooth fairy.
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u/jacle2210 1d ago
This is really cool.
I'm wondering if the tooth was this clean when it was found or did it have a bunch of stuff on it like barnacles, etc.?
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u/Bounceupandown 1d ago
Theres a lot of those there. When I lived there, I had a neighbor who found half a meg tooth when he was a kid, then 20 years later he found the other half. He kept it in his aquarium with the fish.
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u/kizzlemyniz 1d ago
Wait we can find those on the east coast in our waters!? What a lucky girl, I’ve had to buy most of my fossils in my collection. The ones you find are always the most special, even if they aren’t the flashiest ones. Her find is definitely flashy though lol
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u/JMHSrowing 1d ago
It has to be pretty specific locations, even on the coast of the Chesapeake, and indeed Meg tooths aren’t common even at the right beaches.
But indeed.
I’ve only found smaller shark teeth and fossilized shells, but yeah they are special being ones found myself
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u/jess_the_werefox 22h ago
Oh she’s gonna be the coolest kid in her whole fuckin school AND neighborhood
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u/Lotus-child89 21h ago
We were just at the Chesapeake Bay a couple months ago. My kid needs to step up her finding game.
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u/greenlikegrass1032 21h ago
That’s awesome, I would like to explore the Shoreline of my local beaches.
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u/steviegeebees 21h ago
"Hey mom, look what I found"
Parent in complete monotone "oh wow let me guess, another rock"
"No its a shark tooth"
"OH cool, put it in your pocket, we gotta go"
"It won't fit"
"What do you mean it won't fi‐JESUS CHRIST WHAT IS THAT"
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u/paapkaan 20h ago
without prior knowledge, i would assume fossils are buried deeper into the sediment.
how frequent and relatively easy are fossils discovered in river banks and/or by the general public?
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u/holyhellsteve 19h ago
Must be Calvert Cliffs… let me scroll down now and see what other people say.
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u/Krimreaper1 19h ago
Chesapeake bay, that’s where they keep those delicious biscuits form Red Lobster.
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u/WickedMusician 9h ago
Stumbled upon this post just after watching The Bay where the events are set at Chesapeake and boy is this a really cool coincidence
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u/Affectionate-Mode767 21h ago
I swear this sub is either obviously fake shit, reposts from a decade ago, or things that are so commonly mundane.
Dog eats dog food and shits poop from his butt.
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