Uckfield Entrepreneurs
Jack O’Neill’s early interest in fossils became a hobby which turned into an online business and resulted in the unique Uckfield shop Underground Fossils. This is one of just a small handful of shops in the entire country that concentrates almost entirely on selling fossils. Jack buys his fossils mostly from a UK-based wholesaler; a company, apparently, dominated by palaeontologists.
Ironically perhaps, the fossil market is buoyant and vibrant with new finds coming onto the market regularly: intermittent sea dredging around the continental shelf reveals many of the fossils found in Europe. Modern technology is getting better at identifying the bones and the imprints. Rarity, fossil quality, supply, and demand tend to define this lively market.
A stunning new fossil for sale, the femur of a woolly mammoth, is currently on view in the shop, standing over one metre tall. The mammoth lived between 30,000 and 80,000 years ago, probably in southern France, where a chain of supermarkets is named after it. Another item for sale is a 300-million-year-old trilobite (essentially, a giant woodlouse), about three inches long. Both the giant femur and the giant woodlouse, each well-presented and mounted, look more like cool modern sculptures needing their own spotlights in a gallery than muddy fossils dredged from the silt piled up over countless millennia.
Fossils are becoming mainstream symbols of aesthetic cool and posterity, and recent films about dinosaurs and archaeology, as well as social media, have added to the trend. People are now buying fossils as an investment, and prices are rising for the best and biggest pieces of pre-history. Jack also sells fossil-related jewellery, also a popular choice for smaller-budget gifts, as well as gemstones, meteorites, trilobites, ammonites, and minerals.
Once a coral and marine fish shop, Underground Fossils has the feel of a city art gallery, the influence of Jack’s artist brother, whose pictures are on the walls. There’s a healthy turn-around of stock, and not a speck of dust anywhere. A gift shop for palaeontologists and social influencers alike, it’s the kind of place where you can go in looking for a keyring and come out with a trilobite from the beginning of time and the Flood.
In his spare time Jack, who has lived in Uckfield almost all his life, enjoys Ju-Jitsu and keeps fit up the road in Uckfield’s gym. Underground Fossils, at 166 High Street, Uckfield, is open 10am-5pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and 11am-2pm on Sundays.