I have many hobbies and collect many different things. When I was 15 years old I started collecting seashells and I’ve been growing my collection ever since. At this time I probably have over 150+ specimens in my collection and that doesn’t include the boxes, upon boxes of shells that I use to craft with.
* This book was personally purchased by the writer. This post contains affiliate links.
Collecting seashells is a really fun hobby since I enjoy spending time at the beach. When I visit any beach…I go shelling and collect my seashore treasures. Once I get home I clean them up and then sit down to identify them, catalog them and place them in labeled storage boxes.
There are several great seashell identification guides out in the retail marketplace that will help you to identify your shells. With that said, the one that I use the most is the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Seashells that I purchased from Amazon. If you’re collecting North American shells, this is the guide that I personally recommend.
This guide is one of the easiest ones to use. You can look up your shell by the type, shape, etc. There are full-color photographs with really nice descriptions to give you size, what characteristics to look for and where that type of shell is mainly found.
If you’re new to shelling there are tips inside the guide to tell you where to look on the beach, in the tide pools, along the rocks, during low tide lines, etc. for each particular shell. That’s right, you have to look in specific places to find specific shells!
In the back of the book you’ll find a handy and easy-to-use glossary of terms and an index that will help you save time when trying to identify a newly discovered treasure. Some guide books are difficult to use and way too time consuming, I find this particular book really easy-to-use! When we travel I like to take it along with me. Seriously, it’s one of the BEST seashell identification guides on the market!!!
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Disclosure: This book was personally purchased by the writer who paid full price. This feature is NOT being sponsored by any company or group. The writer is just sharing her personal opinion with the readers of this blog.
This would be a e guide for me to use. It would definitely help me identify shells.
We find time to visit the beach all year long even in the winter so this would be a fantastic guide for us to have along. I have the Audubon Tree Guide for when we hike and will have to check this sea shell one out.
I love the Western Wildflowers book they put out. I’m about 1,000 or 2,000 miles from the seashore.
I bet you have fun with this book! I would like to take it down to Sanibel Island the next time I get a chance to visit.
That would be a good reference book to have. I am pretty clueless about most seashells, but I love to collect them.
This sounds like a really interesting book. If we lived on the coast I would have to have this!