Shell of medium size (up to 111.1 mm), thin but solid. Shape broad, whorls occasionally inflated. Shoulder with thick, rounded, low knobs or low, narrow, semi-lunar axial lamellae. Colour ranging
from white over yellowish to dark brown, pattern consisting of darker spiral lines or bands of different strength. Aperture coloured or with spots, ranging from pale yellow over orange to purple.

Neptunea cumingi has a characteristically broad shape with ornamented shoulder. The surface is rather glossy. Specimens from Japan usually have a broad, inflated shape with a broad and steep subsutural slope and fine spiral lines. Specimens from Korea usually have a slightly narrower subsutural slope with a more perpendicular orientation to the axis. The pattern occasionally consists of broad, regularly spaced dark spiral bands. The species is harvested in Korea, China and Japan in immense numbers for human consumption. Consequently, left-handed specimens turn up occasionally. Neptunea arthritica is occasionally similar in shape but differs in having a smoother, convex shoulder or a more irregularly sculptured shell, a glossy and iridescent aperture with fine internal spiral lines and usually a smaller adult size.

Range and habitat: Neptunea cumingi lives in northeastern subtropical Asia and is known from the Yellow Sea (China), the East China Sea (China and Korea) and the Sea of Japan (to central Honshu in the east). Living in shallow water the species can tolerate strong fluctuations in temperature.