I believe you're talking about straw mushrooms (volvariella sp.) vs death caps (amanita phalloides). They are very similar to the untrained eye (and both can vary in appearance a lot from one spot to the next). One of the tells for amanitas it that they have an egg-like "volva" that you can find in the dirt just underneath the mushroom's stem if you dig a little. But volvariella species have this too... spore prints are one way to differentiate if you're patient.

But yeah, second that you can handle toxic mushrooms with no problems unless you swallow them.