These are clearly only partial numbers. Collections held by the petroleum industry are also very difficult to assess. The total number may therefore be around 12-16 million samples. Surveys of non-U.S. industrial collections are scarcer. A world-wide number of 100 million samples in all industrial collections is therefore not inconceivable.
Collections held by private individuals are even more difficult to inventory.
This would amount to a total of 2.5 million specimens. Countries such as Britain, Germany, France, Canada, and Japan probably have similar proportional private holdings. Less developed countries might be expected to have lower numbers. A realistic estimate for the total size of significant private collections worldwide might therefore be 25 million specimens. We can therefore estimate the world's paleontological collections as containing approximately 275 million specimens.