Choosing a great white shark tooth is part eye, part documentation. A photograph alone will not tell you whether a specimen is honest. The questions a careful collector asks fall into five categories: serrations, root, color and surface, size and position, and provenance.
Serrations
The serrations are the first thing to examine. On a top-grade modern great white, both cutting edges should retain crisp, evenly spaced denticles from base to tip. Wear and chipping at the tip is common and acceptable; missing serrations along the shoulder or random gaps in the cutting edge reduce grade. Hold the tooth up to a strong light at an angle. The serrations should appear sharp and unrestored.
Root
A complete bilobate root tells you the tooth was shed naturally and recovered intact. Look for symmetry between the two lobes, an unbroken bourrelet (the ridge between root and crown), and minimal chipping along the basal edge. Restored or reattached roots will often show a faint seam or color discontinuity at the bourrelet.
Color and Surface
Modern great white teeth carry a creamy white to ivory enamel with darker, parchment-toned roots. Fossil teeth from the same species or its ancestors take on the mineral palette of their burial matrix. Beware uniformly white teeth marketed as “modern” that show no tonal variation between root and crown; that flatness can indicate restoration or replication.
Size and Position
A 2″ tooth from the upper anterior position will look noticeably different from a 2″ tooth from the lower lateral position. Anterior teeth are tall and symmetrical; lateral teeth lean and broaden. When a seller offers no position information, treat it as a yellow flag: position affects both display value and price.
Provenance
For modern teeth, the most important question is whether the specimen pre-dates the U.S. species protections of the late 1990s, or comes from a documented modern channel. Pre-ban teeth should be accompanied by a note placing them in a private collection assembled before that era. Documented modern teeth should reference the channel of origin and the year of acquisition.
What to Skip
Restored teeth are not inherently disqualifying, but they should be disclosed. Heavy resin fills, painted serrations, or roots glued back from fragments are common in the lower-priced market. If a listing description avoids the word “restoration” entirely, ask before you buy.
One Final Check
Ask the seller for a labial photo, a lingual photo, a profile, a root close-up, and a ruler shot. If those five views are not available, the seller is either inexperienced or hiding something.