Fossil collector to open museum shop in Hamilton
Bones, teeth and other fossilised animal remains that have taken nearly 25 years to collect will soon be displayed in Hamilton.
Hamilton man Vance Smith has amassed about $15,000 worth of fossils and is opening a museum-shop in Frankton in May to share his passion.
The spot in Frankton’s Commerce St will help him “get it out there for the up and coming paleontologist”, he said.
He’s sold some of his taonga before and said purchasers were “people with a passion or who’d like to invest in these things that will never go down in price”.
In some cases he gifts things to people with a “glow” of recognition in their eyes.
“For me, it’s just the colours where it was and where it came from, something that big walked the earth. Well, it's gone, will never come back.”
His passion became an obsession and, while he’d sold a few pieces on Facebook marketplace over the last couple of years, Smith said “New Zealand doesn't have the money” for it.
Single mammoth tusks - 7ft long - go for at least $100,000 a pop and owning a tiny portion of it is also expensive.
”There's a lot of people out there who are intrigued with it and got the want to get it, they just don't have the funds to get it.
“So I have decided to bring in some replicas they can afford.”
His fascination with old bones and teeth began with a discovery in Northland. and as the internet exploded, many gaps were filled and he He became more intrigued with mammoths, megalodon, and the like.
“I learnt a megalodon would shed 40,000 teeth over its lifetime of 60 to 80 years. And people go, oh, so there's a million billion teeth out there.
“But that was 30 odd million years ago, erosion and time and everything has covered it all up, so it’s not something you just gonna walk down the river and find.”
In his early days as a collector, Smith spent a week on river Aurora in North Carolina - known to be the breeding ground for megalodons.
“It's five miles long and 200 feet wide, and the level goes up and down in the water and you can dig in it, drag in it and a lot of people get money.”
Smith says he’s chasing dinosaurs and Megalodons from the Ice Age, still buried and only beginning to pop out of the ground.
“Global warming is bringing it all out.” Smith’s other passion was explaining history to others and going to schools to do “little shows” on fossils.
“There are kids out there that read, eat and sleep, this type of stuff.
His new ‘museum-shop’ will have a $2 entry fee - to cover a mask and gloves - and the opportunity to make a purchase. “But that won’t be the focus.”
The shop will be at 92 Commerce St, Frankton, and opens May 15.