dinosaurs

Dinosaur for Sale (still)!

Filed under: Auctions

Bonhams & Butterfields tried to unload a dinosaur skeleton Saturday, but the piece was one of 17 lots that didn't move at the Natural History auction at the Venetian in Las Vegas. The auction house had originally hoped to pull in estimated $6 million for the 66-million-year-old bones of a 40-foot Tyronnosaurus Rex. In all, it was shooting for around $8 million in sales. Only 60 percent of the lots coming under the gavel sold.

The T. rex skeleton that nobody wanted (at least not at that price), named Samson, is the third most complete ever pulled from the ground, according to Thomas Lindgren, Co-Director of Natural History at Bonhams & Butterfields.

"'Samson'" is one of four known T. rex specimens which display characteristics that set it apart from other examples of the species," Lindgren continues. "In the dynamic science of paleontology, variation from one specimen to the next may indicate varying developmental phases, normal variations within a species, or it may represent the discovery of an entirely new species. As it stands, experts identify 'Samson' as Tyrannosaurus rex."

Samson was the first T. rex to come on the scene since 1997, when Sotheby's auctioned Sue, a dinosaur of similar size. The Field Museum in Chicago picked her up for a record $8.36 million – a price that still has not been topped. Sue is considered to be the largest and most complete T. rex ever excavated.

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Nicolas Cage and Leonardo DiCaprio Fight Over A Dinosaur Skull

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Celebrity Shopping

We already knew Nicolas Cage was spendy, Ferraris, his own Bahamian island and a Bavarian castle have been among his legendary purchases. But this week saw a bidding war between Nicolas Cage and Leonardo DiCaprio over a dinosaur skull. The Daily Telegraph reports that the two stars locked horns at a Beverly Hills auction over a 67 million-year-old dinosaur skull. Cage eventually won, for $276,000.

The article in the Telegraph goes on to chronicle the hot trend in all sorts of dino artifacts reporting that other dinosaur collectors include director Ron Howard and Nathan Myhrvold, a former Microsoft chief and amateur paleontologist. Like art prices, the prices of fossils have had a steady uptick over the past ten years. This has been good news for the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research, a commercial fossil company which has been involved in a variety of excavations including two Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons. The Great Plains area has yielded a variety of fossils and dinosaur bones.

In Italy, Greece and other European countries, some farmers have occasionally supplemented their incomes with finds from their land. The same seems to be true for some farmers in the US with dinosaur bones. For some, finding the bones can be a windfall in a time when drought has plagued the land. The article tells the story of Bucky Derflinger, from South Dakota who managed to buy a 4,000-acre cattle range with his share of the money from finding dinosaurs on his father's land. So perhaps in some very roundabout way, Cage and the other celebs snatching up dino remains at exorbitant prices are actually helping American farmers.

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Tags: artifacts, auction, dinosaurs, expire-images:2008-7-31, leonardo dicaprio, nicolas cage, NicolasCage, skulls