![]() “It’s a destructive and desperate situation for scientists. ![]() Fossils are valuable for the information they contain, but in the foyer of an oligarch’s mansion, they are nothing but a handful of old bones. Paleontologists are raising their voices: “They are thieves of time,” they accuse, complaining about private collectors and auctioneers. On Sunday, however, the auction house said it was withdrawing the sale after questions emerged about the number of replica bones used in the specimen.ĭinosaurs are becoming a luxury item affordable only to the wealthiest people US paleontologist Steve Brusatte rex – Shen – in Hong Kong, for which it was going to ask around $25 million. On November 30, Christie’s was planning to auction off another T. Two years later it emerged that the buyer had been the United Arab Emirates, for its new natural history museum. Discovered in South Dakota in 1987, its skeleton includes 188 bones – 70% of the total – and its skull is the most complete and best preserved ever found. In November 2020, at Christie’s New York, another T. ![]() That landmark sale brought to light a new business for fossil hunters and auction houses. ![]() Although the trade always existed, in 1997 new ground was broken when Sotheby’s sold a Tyrannosaurus rex nicknamed Sue for $8.4 million that had been found in South Dakota nine bidders competed for the animal, and the winner was Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. ![]() Out of the wastelands of Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas and Wisconsin emerge ghosts of the past: skeletons of dinosaurs that end up in auction houses where they are sold for millions of dollars to collectors, institutions and even Hollywood actors who are willing to pay fortunes for them. ![]()
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