The random settling technique (RST) and the spiking method (SM) are two independent methods that have been combined and used by several authors to calculate absolute abundance of calcareous nannofossils. Both methods usually did not give similar results, and this leads to the question of which one gives a better estimate of nannofossil absolute abundances. In this study, the RST and SM were used to calculate the nannofossil absolute abundances of middle Eocene sediment samples from OOP Lee 171B. Our analyses show similar and reproducible results for both methods. A collector's curve was used to determine that at least six fields of view are needed to get a good representation of all the taxa present in the samples used for this study. The results of a chi (super 2) test showed that the distribution of the nannofossils on the cover slip is uniform with random variation, and the error analyses showed that the SM has greater uncertainties than the RST because of error associated with the diameter of microbeads used for spiking.