Trilobite Trauma

On Sunday I discovered that there is a stall in the market that sells fossils. No idea why I'd missed it before, the stallholder said that they're always there. I suppose I usually just go there for the ostrich burgers and come home again. Anyway, I seem to have found a nice local person to fuel my fossily desires. She saw my interest and started by saying "these are ammonites, these are popular", but I showed her the ammonite that I have around my neck and asked her the price of her three various sized Calymene's. That seemed to convince her that I knew (vaguely) what I was talking about and she whipped out some of her sale stock* for me to look at.

It was beautiful. It was big. It was £45. I wanted it. My parents were with me. I had to leave it behind.

As far as I can tell, it's probably one of these:


Paradoxides davidis**

The Wikipedia page for it says that the adults can grow up to 30-70cm, which would make sense as it's height was about 20cm, maybe a bit bigger. It's head shield came back in points like this one.

Do I buy it?

Of course, she may well have sold it later in the day, but she suspected that she wouldn't. Maybe it's already gone. If I do get it I'll have to hide it from my parents forever***.

On the other hand, it's not like I'm buying food with the £45, it's something gorgeous that will outlive me. You can't even get that kind of long-term use out of a saucepan, even they die eventually. Bloody hell, even a decent pair of shoes will cost £45 and fall apart eventually.

Help!

* No idea how you can put a fossil on sale, they're not exactly last season's fashions. Not complaining.
** More information on the Order Redlichiida for those who might be interested...
*** 32 years old and still lectured about spending too much money.