A Great Message From the Janowskys

March 04, 2001

Hi,

We are the Janowskys and we are the owners of “Mal de Mer Enterprises”, a company that has been dealing in specimen seashells and books about specimen seashells for almost 27 years. We would like to recommend a few items that we feel could help you build and enjoy your shell collection to the fullest extent.

Buying specimen seashells “on-line” and bidding for shells at the various auction sites are great ways to build a very beautiful and a very interesting shell collection if you know what you are doing. There are a lot of good “deals” out there and there are also many good dealers. When buying or bidding on shells it is very important to know that you are getting your specimens at reasonable prices and that the specimens that you are get are accurately identified. To help you gain that knowledge we would like to recommend the three books listed below.

The first is “A Catalog of Dealers’ Prices for Shells: Marine, Land and Freshwater” 19th edition 2001 by Tom Rice. This is the book that shell dealers wish you did not own. It is a compilation of retail prices charged by twenty or more dealers (US and worldwide) for their shells. The book has a soft cover and it is spiral bound. It contains over 17,500 listings and using it will enable you to bid for or buy your shells at a fair price. Many collectors use this catalog as a “check-list” to keep track of what they have in their collections. This book sells for $19.50 and it may be the best money that you will ever spend on a shell book. We still have a few copies of the 18th edition around and can offer them for $14.95 while supplies last. The information in the older edition is not very much “out of date”.

The second book that you should have is “Compendium of Seashells” by Abbott and Dance, two of the most respected authors in the field of shell collecting. This book is the first place to look when trying to identify a shell. It contains more than four thousand color photographs of marine shells with both the common and scientific name and basic locality information about each shell. You will find almost every shell that you come across on the “web” in this book. It is hardbound, 8 ½” by 11” size and is over 400 pages long. It sells for $60.00 . I am sure that this book will become the most important shell book that you own. The beginning section of the book covers just about everything you need to know to study shells and to build a collection. (Image attached)

The third book is “The Encyclopedia of Shells” by K. Wye (Great Britain’s leading shell dealer). This book covers 1200 shells (most of them also found in the “Compendium”) but it has larger photographs and goes into much more detail about each shell. This book is hardbound, contains over 280 pages, and is 8 ½” by 11 ½ ” in size. It was originally published at $45.00 but has just been reprinted and it is selling at the bargain price of $19.95. (Image attached)

You may also want to pick up a metric dial caliper to measure your shells. We offer a low priced but highly accurate model that will measure shells up to 150mm (about 6 “) in length. It is accurate to a tenth of a millimeter (about 1/250 of an inch) and is very easy to use. It is easy to read and easy to calibrate and comes in a clear styrene storage case. These calipers sell for $30.00 and they last forever. The one I am using now is over 25 years old. Those in stock may occasionally vary slightly from the illustration.

Please ask us about our preferred payment methods and local or international shipping costs.

If you would like to see our full list of shell books (over 50 titles in stock and several more “on the way”) and our list of specimen shells for sale please click on this link to get to our website www.maldemer.com.

We also plan to offer a new shell list about 10 times a year that we will be glad to e-mail to you. Please let us know if you would like to receive it.

We wish you good shelling,

the Janowskies

For our complete listing of shell books and specimen shells,
please visit our website at www.maldemer.com