here is a great example of what unaltered, natural fossil material from Lebanon looks like....and what the pained stuff looks like by comparison
can you spot the difference?

Thanks for all those enlightening pictures michael :)
:belemnit:

I think it just goes to show how easy it is to make a mistake buying fossils on the net. It's comparatively easy to tell a fake when one has the specimen in your hand, not so easy when all one has to on is a (slightly blurred) photo on the net.

Beware Lebanon stuff, especially on e-bay.