Green did not immediately identify the buyer. I hope it's going to be shown somewhere in public." "It could be that it was a composite - that could be why the purists didn't go for it," Karl Green, the auction house's marketing director, said by phone. The composite skeleton was a showpiece of an auction that featured some 70 lots, and the skull was set up next to the auctioneer's podium throughout. rex skeleton would go up for auction in Europe. Koller had said Tuesday's sale would be the first time such a T. rex skeleton measuring 11.6 meters long (38 feet long) and 3.9 meters high (12.8 feet) high came in under the anticipated range of 5 million to 8 million francs when it went under the hammer at the Koller auction house in Zurich. "We didn't break anything yet," he said proudly, as he and his colleagues worked on two large ischium bones, which sat near the dinosaur's pelvic area.Nearly 300 Tyrannosaurus rex bones that were dug up from three sites in the United States and assembled into a single skeleton sold at Tuesday at a Switzerland auction for 4.8 million francs ($5.3 million), below the expected price.Ĭrafted into an open-mouth pose, the T. You have to have the glue ready."Īart Walen, a Dutch expert with 30 years' experience assembling dinosaur skeletons, agreed. "They are stabilised, but you never know if there is a crack that you haven't seen so far. So they are brittle, they have cracks," she said. Reassembling Trinity was no easy feat, Yolanda Schicker-Siber, a curator of Switzerland's Aathal Dinosaur Museum, told AFP as she secured another toe bone. "Fossils are not, or at least should not be, considered trophies or glorified action figures," Holtz said.īut Link stressed that 95 percent of known T-Rexes are currently in museums, and said any private collector who might buy Trinity was likely to make it available to scientists and lend it out to museums. He also took issue with auctions of significant dinosaur skeletons and other fossils, which have raked in tens of millions of dollars in recent years.Įxperts have warned such trade could be harmful to science by putting the specimens in private hands and out of the reach of researchers. Vertebrate palaeontologist Holtz, of the University of Maryland, remained sceptical, insisting that Trinity "really isn't a 'specimen' so much as it is an art installation." We are not hiding in any way that this specimen comes from three different dig sites," he said. Link insisted Koller was being transparent about the origins of the bones. Just over half of the bone material in the skeleton comes from the three Tyrannosaurus specimens - above the 50 percent level needed for experts to consider such a skeleton as high quality. The 3.9-metre (12.8-foot) high skeleton went on display on a red carpet under crystal chandeliers in a concert hall in the city Wednesday. The skeleton is being sold by a private individual © ARND WIEGMANN / AFPīut Christian Link of Koller said he believed the guide price was a "pretty low" estimate. Trinity, which is being sold by an anonymous "private individual", is expected to fetch six to eight million Swiss francs ($6.5-8.7 million) when it goes under the hammer in Zurich on April 18, the Koller auction house estimates. "Sue" went under the hammer in 1997 for $8.4 million, and "Stan", which took the world-record hammer price of $31.8 million at Christie's, in 2020. The two sites are known for the discoveries of two other significant T-Rex skeletons that have gone to auction. Trinity, the Swiss T-Rex, is made up of bones from three dinosaurs excavated between 20 from the Hell Creek and Lance Creek formations in Montana and Wyoming. The Swiss sale comes only four months after Christie's withdrew another T-Rex skeleton days before it was to go under the hammer in Hong Kong after doubts were reported about parts of it. to combine multiple real bones from different individuals to create a single skeleton." The huge skeleton will go under the hammer in a rare auction in Switzerland next month after being sent to Zurich from the United States in nine giant crates.īut palaeontologist Thomas Holtz - who is against the sale of such specimens - told AFP that it was "misleading" and "inappropriate.
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