Specimens of Archaeopteryx feather's earlier discovery, von Meyer made the London fossil the type specimen of the genus ("Archaeopteryx") and species ("lithographica"), establishing it as the exemplar of the species' features. Its discovery and subsequent descriptions, a mere handful of years after Darwin's "On the Origin of Species", fulfilled the hope of a truly transitional form in its then-unique amalgamation of bird and reptilian characters. The specimen is preserved on two counter slabs broken originally into four pieces. The main, overlaying slab contains most of the skeletal elements, while only impressions and a few bone fragments are visible on the counter slab. This
Specimens of Archaeopteryx totaling 1,756 Solnhofen specimens - was purchased the following year. In this way the London Museum came to acquire a truly important collection of fossils, many of them quite rare or undescribed at the time. Wellnhofer remarks that it was likely not the price that kept the Bavarian State Paleontological Collection in Munich from acquiring the fossil, but rather the hesitating attitude of Andreas Wagner which delayed any action. Following Wagner's death in 1861, negotiations with Häberlein certainly would have been all the more difficult. In the wake of this important transaction of the first "Archaeopteryx" body fossil, many German