Large Olenellus getzi Trilobite from Old Collection

Description: One of the highlights of a fossils dealer’s life is the very rare opportunity to acquire fossils from an important “old” collection. In this case, a collection amassed over a forty-year period; mostly encompassing fossils from a focused geographic area and time period. Here we are speaking of the Cambrian, Kinzer Formation, of the Lancaster area of Pennsylvania. The collector had special rights and privileges to collect at the classic Getz and Brubacker quarries. These quarries have long since closed. The Brubacker quarry site, now sadly a parking lot. The salient point here is that there will be few if any trilobites excavated from the Kinzer Formation in the future. The only ones available will come from old collections of the last century.

Olenellus getzi are very rare. I was only able to obtain this one from the lot of Wannerias and Olenellus I purchased. This Olenellus has the typical Kinzer type preservation. The specimen is a rust/brown, orange tinged color, fully prone on the rough, hard and platy Kinzer shale. By Kinzer standards this one has excellent preservation. It is 3D with good detail and presence. The right genal spine is complete, though showing a bit of abrasion. The left genal spine is partial. The tail spine in not available. The plate was cracked and repaired. Again, this is the only O. getzi I have to offer, so don’t let this unique opportunity slip away.

The Kinzer formation was evidently a deep-water sequence on the eastern side of the Appalachian Margin of Laurentia. These Wannerias and Ollenids are cousins of the western Poleta and Pioche Formation Nevadias, Olenellus and Esmeraldinas.