Spectacular places attract artists and I suppose that is one reason that I ended up making Hawaii my home. My childhood was spent fishing on the great rivers of northern California and that played a large part in my love for boats, travel and adventure. When I was old enough to leave home I went straight to Hawaii and learned to scuba dive and free dive proficiently while working at my first job circumnavigation. All aboard were avid shell hunters and my interest in shells began.Quickly I became spoiled by the far flung and fantastically remote diving spots I visited on the western route from Hawaii to France...
These 19 days spent in the Seychelles with my family allowed me to seek for shells again. That's always an extreme pleasure to flip dead coral plates (and flip them back) in order to find THE GREAT shell... Personnally as I collect mainly cones, I spend most of my snorkeling and scuba' time looking under stones, dead corals and boulders. This time again was able to find some interesting specimens and here are images of local live seashells !As you can see below, a lot of places shall be visited... and so many dead coral plates to flip...
07 november 2011 :New article published : you can have a look there : http://www.seashell-collector.com/articles/general-articles/seashells-et-art.html
29 september 2011 : New TCC is online (N°18) : you can have a look at this last issue here : The Cone Collector Newsletter N°18
09 august 2011 : New article published : it show images of live shells taken fromTahiti... http://www.seashell-collector.com/article/general-articles/shelling-report-from-tahiti-!.html
04 june 2011 : New article published : it show images of live cone shells taken from my last trip to th Seychelles... http://www.seashell-collector.com/article/general-articles/back-from-19-days-in-the-seychelles.html
04 may 2011 : New article published in the beginners folder. Shelling equipment to go snorkeling ... http://www.seashell-collector.com/beginner/shelling-stuff-to-go-snorkeling.html
15 may 2011 : New article published in the beginners folder. How to bring back shells from your trip without damage... http://www.seashell-collector.com/beginner/how-to-bring-back-shells-from-trips.html
13 may 2011 : New article published from Tahiti. Thanks to Patrick Marti ! http://www.seashell-collector.com/article/general-articles/collecting-in-tahiti.html
09 may 2011 : I am back from my 20 days Seychelles' trip !! I am finishing a long article that will be published in french in XENOPHORA magazine (AFC publication), it will be translated in english and published in future issue of TCC. I will also post a short article on the website of course. I am preparing an article from Tahiti as our local reporter Patrick Marti sent me a lot of shell images from he's recent finds... Laurent is still working hard on the users part and on galleries. Stay tuned !
10 april 2011 : We finally have moved the website from it's original server. The website shall be mush faster now. The new sever allows lot's more updates. We now have finished to work on the template and after the correction of a few bugs we'll work 100% on new users manager. The next step is to provide to members hundreds of possibilities includingthe abilities to show and manage their collection, trade, sell, auction shells, write articles, rate shells,... A lot of work for us !!!!!
26 january 2011 : New Html Article have been published about Patrick Marti's trip toMadagascar. french only :) http://www.seashell-collector.com/articles/general-articles/2010-trip-to-madagascar.html
10 december 2010 : New Html Article have been published about Patrick Marti's 3 weeks trip to phuket (Thailand). Sorry it's in french ! :) http://www.seashell-collector.com/articles/general-articles/phuket-thailand-trip.html
09 december 2010 : New pdf Article have been published from last issue of the french journal XENOPHORA (french) : http://www.seashell-collector.com/Html/xeno/xeno132.pdf
02 december 2010 : We have to update the version of our website builder (MODx) from evolution to the last one "revolution". We are actually near the end of the work, thanks to the great work of Laurent Cayre. As soon as the version have been updated, we will go back to the huge task that we were handling before : creating a brand new "user" manager that will allow you to make so many more stuff, such as your shop, auctions,trades,galleries,collections...
01 october 2010 : FORUM : The forum now have 2 other mother languages. We added a french & Italian Forum. I will moderate the french forum and Giancarlo Paganelli will have in charge the italian forum.
01 october 2010 : Actually we are working on the following points :
- Having last posts and forum online users appear on home page.
- Setting up spanish sub-forum
- Having better image galleries
- On the first page, to be able to see the five most recent articles and browse them
- Setting up the users page in order to have one account for all applications (collectors,forum,...)
- The ability to show your own collection with galleries (related to the next version of accounts)
- The ability to set up your own shop or trade room
09 september 2010 : IMPORTANT MESSAGE : The forum have finally moved to seashell-collector's servers !!
All accounts and messages have been transfered. Please read on the new forum how to login with old username. That is the result of 3 monthes of work, thanks to Laurent Cayre.
09 august 2010 : New article published : Small snails from Mediterranean sea Part 1 (08th july 2010) http://www.seashell-collector.com/articles/general_articles/page_small-snails-from-mediterranean-sea-part-1.html
29 July 2010 : New article published : Conus hornii in Venezuela, by Alessandro Zanzi http://www.seashell-collector.com/articles/general_articles/page_conus-hornii-in-venezuela.html
29 July 2010 : TCC SPECIAL EDITION OUT : Danker L. N. Vink's The Conidae of the Western Atlantic http://www.seashell-collector.com/miscellaneous/page_theconecollector.html
15 July 2010 : New interview : António Monteiro, author of the famous TCC ! http://www.seashell-collector.com/articles/general_articles/page_interview-of-antonio-monteiro.html
05 July 2010 : Seychelles Coneshells have been imported from old website http://www.seashell-collector.com/index.php?id=1019
Dear travellers, I am sure that some of you may have troubles on how to bring back your shells from your shelling trips without damage ! Well, my method is not the only one but I have never damaged my shells. Even if some shells (like Cowries, Oliva shells,...) are strong enough to travel without damage, I use the same method for all families. Steps are :
- Use toilet paper to wrap your shell - Cone Shells : protect the lip first - Use tape to finish wraping - Use plastic zip bag (smell)- Use plactic box - Use plastic zip bag again (smell) [optionnal]
Interview of Mr Giancarlo Paganelli, 2008
Author of one of the best online shells related database : http://www.coneshell.net/
Hello Giancarlo, It is my honor to interview the author of coneshell.net, which is a wonderful cone shell database, in its' 10th anniversary on the web, congratulations! My seashell-collector site was launched one year later.
Many thanks. However the honour is mine to be interviewed by an experienced self cone shells (not only) collector and author of the most impressive portal of seashells on the net.
Cone Shells 
Martinique Seashells 
Mix of different families 
