Please help me identify this shell--Buddhists believe it is special

[paul monfils]

The picture provided by Mark is indeed the "Indian Chank" or "Sacred Chank", Turbinella pyrum, considered a sacred item in both Hinduism and Buddhism. However, it is only the extremely rare sinistral (left-spiraled) specimens that are considered to hold religious significance, not the normal right-spiraled ones. Here is another picture of the species, showing the normal right-spiraled shell and the rare "sacred" left-spiraled one:

<a href="http://www.hindunet.org/saraswati/chank/turbinella3.JPG" target="_blank"><!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.hindunet.org/saraswati/chank/turbinella3.JPG">http://www.hindunet.org/saraswati/chank/turbinella3.JPG</a><!-- m --></a>

As for the shells mentioned, from the Florida garage sale, they are almost certainly not this species, but the Florida lightning whelk, Busycon sinistrum, a very common species that is normally left-spiraled:

<a href="http://www.shellmuseum.org/Sanibel/shells_sinistrum.html" target="_blank"><!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.shellmuseum.org/Sanibel/shells_sinistrum.html">http://www.shellmuseum.org/Sanibel/shel ... strum.html</a><!-- m --></a>

I have read of cases where people sold shells of this species to practitioners of either Buddhism or Hinduism, sometimes at prices far exceeding their actual value, who apparently were most glad to accept them. I don't know whether the buyers thought they were actually getting sinistral chank shells for their money, or whether the fact of sinistrality was the central issue, and they were willing to take another unrelated species just because it is sinistral, even though normally so.