SHELL EXPERT FIGHTS CHARGE : PROSECUTOR LIKENS MAN TO MURPH THE SURF AFTER RARE ITEM TAKEN.

Byline: David Lyons The Miami Herald

In the esoteric world of seashells, the finest specimens end up in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. That's the place where Murph the Surf, a Miami thief, swiped the Star of India sapphire in 1964.

Now, another local dignitary, Martin Gill, is on the museum's list of suspected thieves - for swiping an extremely rare seashell, one of only six on the face of the globe.

Gill, 49, is a seashell expert. He lives in Kendall, a Miami suburb, and in August the museum hired him to appraise its collection.

In a federal courtroom Wednesday in Miami, Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Watts-Fitzgerald called him ``Miami's Murph the Surf of seashells.'' Gill winced.

According to the government, Gill walked off with a Chimaeria Incomparabilis, a 2.5-inch prize once thought to be extinct.

``They knew him and trusted him,'' said U.S. Customs agent Keith Prager. ``He had done appraisals in the past.''

Shortly thereafter, Prager said, Gill advertised the sale of the shell on the Internet - and found a Belgian buyer, Guido Poppe. He offered $12,500 for it.

Gill shipped it off from Miami to Europe, and the Belgian quickly turned a profit. He sold it to Widodo Latip, an Indonesian collector in Jakarta. The price: $20,000.

``That's an unheard of price for a shell,'' said a knowledgeable shell dealer. ``Obviously, it was very much in demand, collectors wanted it because it's almost one of a kind.''

A museum spokeswoman declined to discuss the case, saying she did not want to jeopardize the chances for recovery.

The Indonesian, Custom Agent Prager said, is willing to return the shell once he receives proof it was stolen. He wants a refund.

The Russians first found the shells in the 1970s in waters off Africa, said Gary Rosenberg, the curator of mollusks at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Initially, they went unrecognized as the rarities that they are.

``At the time, being unnamed, they were sort of overlooked,'' he said. The first three specimens remained in Russia until the break-up of the Soviet Union. They were acquired by the Museum of Natural History in New York and the Smithsonian in Washington.

A few years ago, Italian fishermen found another two specimens off Somalia. Of the six worldwide, only one is privately held, in a Japanese collection.

The others are at museums in New York, Washington and Paris.

What makes the shells so rare is the depths at which they are found and the difficulty in uncovering them.

``If you knew exactly where the habitat was, you could probably collect hundreds,'' Rosenberg said.

``They exist in relatively deep waters, so it would be difficult to scuba dive for them,'' Rosenberg said. ``You have to rely on shrimp trawlers or scallop trawlers. They're fishing for something else and they come up with the one by chance.''

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Specimen fetches many clams

Associated Press