Should u clean shells before selling for safety/health reasons

[paul monfils]

That depends on just what you mean by "cleaning". If you caught the mollusk alive, the first step in "cleaning" is to remove the soft parts of the animal from inside the shell, which is usually done by cooking, followed by extraction of the soft parts by use of a hooked tool and/or pressurized flushing. Failure to do this will not result in any great health threat but it may result in a very unpleasant odor, which could cause your package to be confiscated if you mailed the shell to someone. Further cleaning is not absolutely essential, and once the shell has dried thoroughly there should be little if any odor.

However, collectors generally like to receive shells that have been cleaned more thoroughly than this, both internally and externally, especially if they are paying for the shells. The commonest way to accomplish this is to lower the shell spire downward, into a container of 10% to 20% chlorine bleach solution (Chlorox or a similar brand). Leave it a couple of hours, then flush thoroughly under running tap water several times. Shake out as much water as possible, then allow the shell to dry. Again, none of this has anything to do with health or safety, just odor and appearance.

Finally, there many be attachments of other organisms to the outside of the shell, such as tubeworms, barnacles, bryozoans, etc. It may be necessary to pick these off the shell with a sharp pointed metal tool, once the shell is dry.