First they were selling the Lightning Whelk as the rare Dakshinavarti Shankha. Warnings posted with pictures in many websites, including this site, made people aware of this. Then they started faking three or four lines at the inside opening of the Lightning Whelk to make it look more authentic. X-Ray can expose this. The Dakshinavarti fakers are getting smarter but the X-Ray photographs give a very good picture of how they are faked. See how the fakes can be caught as shown in the two pictures bellow. See the faked ridges on the Lightning Whelk (busycon contrarium) picture to the left and how they don’t show in the X-Ray picture on the right.
See another fake which is a smarter idea and more difficult to catch
