Fossil Dealer: Stones and Bones Fossil Company

Fossil collectors who have had internet access for the past decade will probably be very familiar with the website home page to the left (click the image to visit). Launched in early 1994, the Stones and Bones Fossil Company (SB) based in Lizella, Georgia has had an enduring internet presence for more than a dozen years. SB predates the 900 pound gorilla of e-bay – imagine that. Those of you familiar with internet technology will recognized that this website also predated the powerful website authoring software such as Dreamweaver and Frontpage, much less the now common automated templates enabling the publishing of a website in a matter of a few hours. Thus, the SB website had to be hard coded in hypertext markup language (html), a painfully tedious process that few people have ever attempted. After all these years there are an estimated 200 sites and many others that have come and gone.

More important than SB being an Internet pioneer is the respect the company has earned from its competing peers, the impetus for Collecting Fossils (CS) interviewing the SB owner Richard Hightower (RT).

CF: I've been told by several people that Stones and Bones was one of the first, if not THE first, commercial fossil site on the Internet. Can you tell us about your business, and how you came to be an Internet pioneer?

RH: We started selling fossils on the internet in early 1994, one year before e-bay came on line. Actually, I think we were the second or third fossil dealer to go on line. I had been selling fossils since 1984 at club shows and through catalog orders. My son was the driving force for the move to an Internet sales venue. He was a serious computer user, experienced in HTML programming, and was insistent that the Internet was the way to go. My son, Brad, and his friend Travis Christopher built the site line by line. In those days this is how it was done, no instant website "plug and play" templates, or plug and play anything on a computer. I worked with them over the next several months and learned how to manipulate the site code myself. As I was unsure of how successful the site would be, I agreed to give them a percentage of all the sales rather than a fee, an arrangement that ultimately worked out well for them, and I was quite impressed by the sites effectiveness.

CF: I’ve been told by several fossil dealers that it’s a pretty tough job. Do you concur? What’s the good, bad and ugly about this business?

RH: As we were very early on the net, we had great results and built up an impressive customer base. We have always had the satisfaction of the customer as our foremost priority. We try to be absolutely honest in our descriptions and identifications and always offer a full money back guarantee if the customer is not satisfied, or if an item is received damaged.

The biggest change came when a lot of people started selling fossils on e-bay. I had a lot of my customers buying there, and then asking me to verify what they had purchased so cheap. A large number of unknowledgeable and/or deceitful people selling misidentified and/or fake fossils certainly negatively impacted the market.

We have been fortunate in that our traffic has always been good enough that we’ve had neither the time nor motivation to sell on e-bay. Our rankings on the internet have always been among the top five since the beginning. Because of the changes in the listings on the search engines we do not show up that high, and I have often thought I should change to the site in accordance with site ranking criteria, but as our sales have remained unchanged and we stay busy, I have not done so.

The good part of my business is being able to do what I love and make money too -- how many people can’t say this? We have a great time talking about and selling fossils, and especially enjoy getting “newbies” started in the hobby.

However, I really dislike critiquing fossils people have purchased from some e-bay sellers when asked to do so, especially when they have purchased a heavily restored, misidentified, or fake specimen. On a warmer note, sometimes a child at one of our shows wants a rock or fossil, and parents will not get one for them; when this occurs, I will usually give the child a small specimen for free. I believe these children will remember this and treasure the gift.

CF: I can remember when it was hard to find fossils to buy, now they are everywhere in great abundance. How have things changed over, say, the last decade or so from your perspective?

RH: Yes I agree, there are a great many business-based sources of fossil specimens out there today. Not all of these businesses will make money or survive. But, as I love this business as much as I do, we’ll be fine. I would certainly encourage anyone who wants to try it, to do so, but recommend that you buy specimens you like to resell so that in the worst case scenario, you end up with fossils you don’t mind owning forever!

I advise all potential customers to listen to the seller, and ask lots of questions about the specimens and about the company policies. If the answers are not satisfactory and knowledgeable and the policies vague, then be careful. Also how many times do you have to hear this before it sinks in "if the offer and price is too good to be true, then it probably isn’t"

Have full trust and confidence in whom you deal with, and this dealer will in turn take care of you and your wants. I have often been asked to critique fossils on competitors sites, and often will even suggest specimens on others sites over mine when they are more suited to the customers desires.