{"id":3729,"date":"2026-07-14T10:05:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T10:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=3729"},"modified":"2026-07-14T10:05:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T10:05:24","slug":"sothebys-t-rex-auction-shows-wealth-upending-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=3729","title":{"rendered":"Sotheby\u2019s Big T. Rex Auction Raises Concerns Hype and Wealth Are Upending Science"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Forget the sale<\/span> of the century. The auction house Sotheby\u2019s is gearing up for the sale of the epoch. On July 14 it will open live bidding on assorted fossils<\/a>, but the pi\u00e8ce de r\u00e9sistance is lot 20, a rare 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex<\/em> skeleton.<\/p>\n

The specimen\u2014dubbed Gus\u2014is billed as one of the largest, most complete\u00a0T. rexes<\/em>\u00a0ever found. Gus is expected to fetch up to $30 million and will go to the highest bidder, whether public museum or private collector. The latter have played an increasingly prominent role in buying fossils, with auction houses, according to paleontologists<\/a>, contributing to the trend by building hype. But when private collectors swoop in and buy fossils at auction<\/a> as luxury assets, those pieces of history are effectively lost to science.<\/p>\n

By nearly all accounts, Gus is a big deal. In its description, Sotheby\u2019s boasts that the specimen, which was discovered on a ranch in South Dakota, comprises \u201can incredible 183 fossil bone elements\u201d making it \u201capproximately 61% complete by bone count.\u201d The fossil remains have been mounted in a custom steel armature along with replicas of the missing bones. The result is a reconstructed skeleton posed as if in hot pursuit, its mouth full of dagger teeth ready to tear into prey.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does seem to be a spectacular specimen,\u201d says Thomas Holtz, a tyrannosaur specialist at the University of Maryland. The completeness of the skeleton and the high quality of the bone make Gus \u201cscientifically significant,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Gus is the latest major dinosaur fossil to go up for sale at auction in the US. That trend began in earnest in 1997 when Sotheby\u2019s auctioned Sue, the most complete T. rex<\/em> on record<\/a>. That specimen sold for roughly $8.4 million\u2014the most money ever paid for a fossil at auction at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore Sue was sold, there were no laws about who owned fossils. There was no value truly ascribed to them,\u201d says Cassandra Hatton, vice chairman and head of the science and natural history department at Sotheby\u2019s. In many other countries the state owns the fossils. But court cases around Sue clarified that in the US, whoever owns the land also owns whatever fossils are on it, Hatton explains. The market has been booming ever since.<\/p>\n

But whereas Sue went to a scientific institution\u2014the Field Museum in Chicago\u2014in recent years ultrarich individuals have been snapping up dinosaur fossils at auctions for their private collections, prompting paleontologists to be concerned about the fate of rare specimens. Tech entrepreneur Dan O\u2019Dowd owns a T. rex<\/em> called Samson. And he\u2019s not the only private collector to own a tyrant lizard king. A study published in 2025 found that there are more fossils of\u00a0T. rex<\/em>\u00a0in private collections than there are in public trusts.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just T. rex<\/em> that\u2019s ending up in personal coffers. In 2024, Sotheby\u2019s sold a Stegosaurus<\/em> named Apex to hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin for the record-setting sum of $44.6 million. And last year the auction house sold the only known juvenile Ceratosaurus<\/em> in the world to an anonymous buyer for $30.5 million. These examples highlight another trend: As prices soar, museums simply cannot compete at auction.<\/p>\n

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\"Image<\/picture><\/span><\/div>\n

Courtesy of Matthew Sherman\/Sotheby\u2019s<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forget the sale of the century. The auction house Sotheby\u2019s is gearing up for the sale of the epoch. On July 14 it will open live bidding on assorted fossils, but the pi\u00e8ce de r\u00e9sistance is lot 20, a rare 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton. The specimen\u2014dubbed Gus\u2014is billed as one of the largest, most complete\u00a0T. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[971,965,897,972,772],"class_list":["post-3729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-auctions","tag-dinosaurs","tag-paleontology","tag-scientific-research","tag-wealth"],"yoast_head":"\nSotheby\u2019s Big T. 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