A Collection of Teeth???

Yes, a collection of teeth!  As I have mentioned before, many of my collections were not items that I set out to collect.  This collection falls into this category.  But, as you will see, it is pretty interesting.

I have an older brother, who has always been a great brother to me!  We were pretty close growing up and have always had a lot in common. 

My brother and I...looks like a picture from the 50's, right?

My brother has a very creative mind.  He  likes to try new things, learn new information, read, create, problem solve, and have a good time.  He's a wonderful dad, husband, son, and of course, brother. He likes being out doors, and appreciates nature.

Again, my brother and I...this really shows our personalities!

We have had a lot of good times together, and share memories that only the two of us have.

Don't get me wrong, we are typical brother and sister with our share of fights and arguments when we were growing up.  Wait, it was more like teasing and annoying!  Anyway, it was all pretty mild and the fights sure didn't last long.  I wonder what he remembers?

My brother is a forester.  About 35 years ago (wow!)  he was hiking and came across some teeth.  I don't know many of the details.  But, he stopped and collected them and gave them to me.  I love this for two reasons.  First, it makes me feel happy to know that he would think that I would like something like this, which is so true.  Second, he gave them to me because he said he thought that I would probably like to do something artistic with them.  Again, a really nice compliment.  I have had them in my gourd decorations box, and am planning to embellish a gourd some day with them, or maybe something else.  But, we have used them over the years, they were great for "show and tell" at school.

These are probably the teeth of a cow.  However, according to the Internet, it is very difficult to tell the difference between a cow's and a buffalo's teeth....but, it was probably a cow.  A cow has 32 teeth.  If you count, there are 38 here. Huh?

I am not a scientist or a detective, but I am guessing that the teeth belonged to a cow and maybe a calf.   Again, according to the Internet, a calf can be born with 0-6 teeth.  If you look closely,  you can see six very small teeth that I can't imagine could fit into the mouth of a cow with the other huge teeth you see here.

Here is a close up of the grinding surface of the teeth.  I think all the cracking is from age.

Tooth surface.

You can see how long the roots are.  If you compare the teeth, you will see that some look as though they were in the jaw bone longer, as they are discolored.  But, some of the others look bleached out.

Here is a smaller tooth, but still quite a bit larger than the possible calf's tooth.

Here is what I think is one of the calf's teeth.

Notice the difference in size.  I would love to hear what you think...any ideas on the extra teeth?

Now, these are tooth models that a dentist gave me.   I don't remember why...But I think they are really great. They are made of plaster.  Again, another good "show and tell" item.

Here's another view to show you that they are pretty big.  I am still trying to think of something to do with them. 

For some reason, my dentist gave me these.  They aren't my teeth.  I think that they might be my son's.  He was hit in the mouth with a rock when he was in middle school and the rock broke off two of his teeth.  The dentist put caps on the teeth and I think this is the model after the caps.  I am not sure, though. I should have labeled them.  But, I probably thought I would never forget whose teeth they are.  It's kind of amazing that I did!

Here's my son...we were very safety conscious as you can tell!  Anyway, check out his teeth, he' got a few missing, right?  Now scroll down......

Yep, the Tooth Fairy returned his teeth after collecting them and I have a little jar of my son's baby teeth.  According to the Internet, all children have 20 baby teeth.  I only saved 15 and have no idea what happened to the other 6.  Yes, I can add correctly, but my son had 21 teeth, because he had an extra tiny little tooth next to his left front tooth.  See the tiny little tooth?  He had lots of nicknames and one of them was "Double Tooth!"

And here is my sweet daughter, she seems to be missing a tooth, too. Scroll down......

Yep, the Tooth fairy was very efficient.   Another little jar of baby teeth.  But, I have 16 of her teeth, only missing 4.  Now, when I pulled her jar of baby teeth out of my drawer, most of her teeth had broken into pieces.  I have no idea why.  She is five years older than my son, so maybe his will break later on.  Anyway, it took me forever to fit them back together and Super Glue them.  Now she will have them forever...except that she thinks all of these teeth are disgusting!

Last but not least, this is the tooth of a prehistoric shark.  It actually belongs to my son, the engineer.  But, since it is still in our house, I will count it a part of my teeth collection until he moves it out!  Sounds fair to me!

When I was researching cow's teeth on the Internet, I found that there are a lot of people that have collected teeth from animals, snakes, fish, etc.  My collection pales in comparison to theirs.

Anyway, if and when I figure out how to use the cow's teeth artistically, I will certainly share the results.  Have a nice day!