![]() ![]() “That’s an astronomical price that borders on absurdity, based on my knowledge of the market,” added paleontologist David Evans, the vertebrate paleontology chair at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, who suggested the anonymous buyer could have spent the same funds in a far more effective way to deepen humanity’s understanding of the prehistoric beasts. The day after Stan was sold, paleontologist Lindsay Zanno of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences described the sale price as “simply staggering.” rex dug up by the same South Dakota institute and eventually purchased by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago for $8.36 million (equivalent to nearly $13.5 million today). The previous record was set in 1997 with the sale of “Sue,” a largely complete T. ![]() rex for a record $31.8 million, the highest price ever paid at auction for a fossil. On October 6, the London-based auction house Christie’s sold the T. Now, an auctioneer’s hammer has thrown Stan’s future into question, with the dinosaur bones sold off to the highest-and, so far, anonymous-bidder, stoking fear among experts that this beloved T. Dozens of high-quality casts of its bones are on display in museums around the world, from Tokyo to Albuquerque, New Mexico. But even if you’ve never been there, chances are good that you’ve seen this particular T. Nicknamed “Stan” after its discoverer, the beast was excavated in 1992 and has long been housed at the private Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in Hill City, South Dakota. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.More than three decades ago in South Dakota, an amateur paleontologist named Stan Sacrison discovered a titan of the ancient Earth: the fossil of a mostly complete, 39-foot-long Tyrannosaurus rex. That outcome is still on the table, of course, but it might be a while before we find out Maximus’s fate. “We always hope that it will be bought by an institution or an individual who will donate to one.” ![]() “This is something that I would want to study in my research if I could,” the paleontologist James G. Maximus, for example, seems to be a scientifically important specimen, but because the buyer has remained anonymous, nobody knows yet where he will end up. These academics contend that if wealthy individuals with money to spare can simply buy fossils, the skeletons may be kept from research and further study. “It’s all based on confidence,” he said after Friday’s sale, “and right now, there’s very low confidence in that arena.”ĭinosaur auctions have also been a sore spot for paleontologists. The art adviser Todd Levin told the Times that the outcome of the Christie’s sale may have impacted buyers’ certainty. Questions had come up about how much real bone was included in the skeleton, an issue that may have hurt the Maximus auction as well. Just a couple of weeks ago, Christie’s canceled an auction of a larger T.Rex expected to hammer down for up to $25 million. The sale was surrounded by a bit of controversy, perhaps contributing to its lower-than-expected profits. ![]() “And we are pleased to have set a significant new benchmark for dinosaur fossils at auction.” “Today’s sale was always designed to gauge the market,” said Cassandra Hatton, the global head of science and popular culture at Sotheby’s and the organizer of the auction. Mozart's Sheet Music, a Letter From King Henry VIII and More Literature Is Heading to AuctionĪn Auction of 100 Indonesian Islands Has Been Delayed After Backlash From Environmentalistsīring a Trailer Could Reach a Record $1.3 Billion in Auction Sales By the End of the Year An anonymous buyer paid that sum for Maximus-as the skull has been nicknamed-which weighs more than 200 pounds and was discovered in northwestern South Dakota. A T.Rex skull expected to fetch $15 million to $20 million ended up selling for just $6.1 million, The New York Times reported on Friday. But the prehistoric creature’s fortunes may be changing. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |