What's the difference between 見本 and 標本?


They both mean "specimen", right?

Am I right in assuming that 見本 is for goods, products on sale but 標本 is for
zoological samples, etc.?

I checked the sample sentences on Weblio just to check the usual collocations
and here's what I found:

> **見本** ：見本売買、書籍の見本

> **標本** ：動物標本、植物標本




**見本** is something that has a value being similar to the "real thing" that
you can get otherly. Most times in daily life, this is what we expect
specimens to be. It thus is not necessary to be an instance of "real things",
such as specimens of banknotes or
[food](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_model).

It also has a meaning "good example (for you to imitate)" (= 手本).

**標本** is, conversely in some ways, something that has a value being a factual
evidence that other things are also like it. For example, a zoological
specimen is actually not a "typical example" of that species, but the
"definition" itself, where another individual is judged whether being the same
species by comparing against it (for this reason, a common species' scientific
name is occasionally forced to be changed when they find out the alleged
specimen is not identical to what they intended). A boring sample of earth, a
moon's stone, and a set of statistical questionnaire data are not "imitation",
but actual primary sources for researchers to understand what the whole other
part of reality (which is hard to obtain) is like.

We use the loanword **サンプル** in the same way as English too, but it can often
mean 試供品 (freebie or demo).

Specimen for testing is yet another problem: **試料** (or 試験片, 供試体 etc.) in
engineering fields and **検体** in medical.




標本 refers to lifeforms (plants, animals, fishes, insects or sometimes even
humans) or natural materials (rocks, meteorites, etc.) that are preserved and
used for scientific purposes.

見本 refers to product samples, test products, dummies or mockups that are used
to show how the real/final products look like. It may or may not be fully
functional (書籍の見本 may have blank pages if it's for checking the bookbinding).
It also means the same thing as 手本 ("examples for practice").

