This site is owned and maintained by Dr. Felix Lorenz, 35418 Buseck, Germany.

All its contents including all pictures are protected by copyright laws and may be linked-to or reproduced only with permission.

This website has an educational and a commercial component.

The purpose of the educational part is to provide information on certain families of seashells, to promote scientific research on these organisms, and the research done by F. Lorenz and his collaborators.

The information on this site are not to be considered as publications in a taxonomic or bibliographic sense, none of the names or assignments given herein shall be taken as printed word. No responsibility will be taken for any problems that may arise from the use or misuse of the information on this site.

The commercial part has price-lists for seashells and other natural history specimens. The company is registered as "Trade with natural-history and ethnological specimens" at the board of trade of the Federal Republic of Germany, Gemeinde Buseck, 06-531-003, according to §14 GewO and §1 GewAnzO, 30. Sept. 1999. Tax No. 02084301176

Bank details

Europe, Asia, Australia, South Africa: Account name: Felix Lorenz; bank name: Sparkasse Giessen, Buseck, Germany; Bank No. 51350025, account No. 256005877, Int. Bank Account No.: DE08 5135 0025 0256 0058 77 ; SWIFT-BIC: HELADEF1GIE

USA, Canada: account name: Felix Lorenz; bank name: Wachovia, routing No. 063000021 ; account No. 1010140232727

The links to other dealers and organizations are not meant as recommendations but are listed merely for the sake of exchanging links. No responsibility is taken for problems encountered with the owners of the linked sites.

 Some people may argue as to whether killing and collecting anything living is morally justified. Whether collecting and dealing in shells is ethical and ecologically acceptable can be appropriately answered by considering the following aspects : We all have to eat. Eating meat means killing animals. Being vegan still involves destruction of natural habitats for farmland. People making their living by catching fish,by producing crops or anything else we consume have a negative impact on natural resources.

In the poor countries of Indonesia,the Philippines or East Africa for example,where the shallow water shells come from,local people who now live by collecting specimen shells were formerly forced to carry out dynamite or cyanide fishing on the reefs to get by. The shell industry has opened new markets for them,and most have developed a genuine interest in protecting their sources for shells. In areas of heavy collecting but where there is otherwise no impact on reefs by pollution or cyanide fishing,the populations of shells are stable (there have been studies to prove this - please feel free to contact us for further information). The most heavily collected tourist shells such as moneta,annulus,tigris and cassis rufa are still very common throughout their distribution.,except in those places where industry and agriculture have polluted the reefs.

All those who have a seawater fish tank,a pearl necklace,a chest made from tropical wood etc are indirectly supporting massive destruction of reefs by cyanide fishing,the collecting of corals,pearl farming and depletion of the rain forests,with masses of phosphates also washing into the sea as a result of soil erosion.

Dive and even Eco- tourism to the Maldives, the Red Sea and many other places is causing more damage than meets the eye: divers are not actively destroying reefs, but the hotels they stay in exploit fossil freshwater resources (these hotels were not there before) and produce masses of garbage (those plastic mineral water bottles wash ashore everywhere in the world and it is not the local population that buys them). Locations for tourism consume obscene amounts of diesel fuel to charge cylinders, keep generators and boats running etc etc, and in the end the accompanying waste materials are inevitably dumped somewhere, preferably on some other offshore reef, because financial pressures due to strong competition for the tourists prevent the appropriate ecological investment. 'Ecologically aware' tourism usually has a downside that is hidden to the tourist (again,there are plenty of studies to support this).

Shell collectors accumulate material of high educational value.A shell collection that is well documented will last for generations,to educate, preserve knowledge,spread awareness of the wonders and fragility of nature,and give support to science. Most collectors' shells come up as by-catch from the fishing industry.

All those who ever once ate a plate of shrimp have contributed to the destruction of reef and deep sea habitats,more so than any sensible shell collector. The gathering of 1 kg of Pacific shrimps entails the destruction of up to 50 kg of marine life,either by dragging it up,turning it upside down (by the chains which force the shrimps to jump into the nets that drift 20 cm over the sea bottom) or by causing deep water habitats to become polluted with nitrates that are stirred up by dredges. And what about those shrimps and fish from farms ? Well, let's see... what was there before the farm existed ? Mangrove and coral reef habitats that died once people started building that shrimp/fish farm, as a result of the fertilizers for the algae (used for food) and the antibiotics which this sort of venture takes. Note, by the way, that a lobster takes approximately seven years to grow up and 15 minutes to eat. A shell takes between a few months and two years to grow to adulthood and lasts for ever when treated properly.

What I am trying to demonstrate here is that there are lots of things that have a negative impact on reefs. It is generally agreed that a handful of people picking up shells could never seriously reduce a shell population. 10 specimens will escape the collector's attention before one is found. Many are left because of imperfections in their shells. Hundreds of people walking across a reef at low tide, systematically picking up each and everything, might, however, clean out a place completely. Serious specimen shell collectors should point out their opposition to the commercial and tourist shell industry and behave accordingly,by restricting their collecting activities to the families they specialize in and to a moderate number of specimens suitable for and needed in their collection. Hardly any shell population decline is due to human interference. Apparent cyclical fluctuations suddenly offering abundant quantities of previously rare species have been reported repeatedly. But, in cases where man is felt to be responsible, shell collectors can offer important information to the public, pointing out situations in which populations are endangered by irresonsible behavior. As long as the circumstances responsible for the decline have not been corrected and the population has not recovered,all measures should be taken to protect the shells. This is where the species protection acts have their impact, and no collector whom we supply would argue against them. If you have witnessed declines in populations of shells, please report them, as well as the circumstances that might have led to their decline, so that it may be ascertained whether shell collectors could have been the cause. Dealing in such shells will then be restricted to dead-taken material and old stocks. Consideration of these simple thoughts should convince everybody that collecting sea shells has a legitimate place in the world and within human society.