The fossil Megalodon teeth being offered here with the listing vaguely mentioning that they have been polished with lapidary equipment, should really be saying that the teeth were broken or badly damaged when found and then ground down past the enamel layer and polished. Today I saw many new listings with multi-colored teeth advertised and upon examination found that they all had been polished in this way. The auctions state that they have not been repaired, no fillers or color was added. although this is partly true, they have in fact been artificially repaired to give the illusion of an original whole tooth. If you look closely at them you can see that the enamel layer has been ground off and the underlying core material is now exposed and polished. There are NO serrations on this new polished surface either. These teeth should have no collector value other than a curiosity display or decoration. They are not as hyped in the auction listings and should not be thought of as whole teeth. In most cases these teeth were much longer and had severe damage to the blade portion of the tooth. Instead of leaving the tooth with a broken blade, workers grind the blades to a new and unnatural tip, removing the broken edges. Once shaped into a triangle the new blade is ground further and polished creating a smaller version of the original with an over sized root. The claims that these teeth sell for big money at shows in sadly true. The people buying them use them for decoration or for a collection not knowing what has really been done to them. I spoke to three people that bought such teeth at a recent show and NONE of them knew that their purchase was a reworked damaged tooth. I would not mind the selling of these teeth if they were properly represented and buyers were made aware of the polishing process and what the tooth looked like before it was ground down. Frankly, I don't know why any collector would want one but I do see the attraction as a decorative object only. Any and all work done to a fossil should be accurately described instead of dancing around the truth with misleading claims. Please look at the teeth you are bidding on and question the seller about anything that looks odd. Look at the numerous good and honest natural teeth listed here and be familiar with what a good tooth looks like before bidding on reworked teeth that in their natural state would be of little value.
 UPDATE:
 Since posting this information in July there has been a drastic reduction in the number of polished teeth listed here. Some of the dealers now briefly note that the tooth has been polished which is more than they had been doing. Two people sent me nasty email for posting the information, so I can only assume that they may have been sellers of altered teeth! At present over 2600 people have read this posting so I hope that word is getting out to the collectors being tempted by these tragic works. Even with the reduction in numbers, there are still PLENTY of reworked teeth offered for sale here and on other sites. Please be careful!
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