On October 6, Stan, the most famous T-Rex skeleton in the world, was auctioned by Christie’s auction house within the Art of the 20th Century event. Its owner, the Black Hills Institute, expected to raise about $ 8 million. But as expected, the auction shot up and ended up selling for $ 31.8 million, taxes included.
It is quite a record for a fossil. The previous one was held by another Tyrannosaurus Rex named Sue, which was sold in 1997 for $ 8.4 million. Adjusting for inflation, it would be equivalent to about 13 million today.
Only about 50 T-Rex have been discovered in the world, very few integers. Stan is one of the largest and most complete, 188 bones. It measures more than 4 meters high and more than 13 meters long. In life, 65 million years ago, it would weigh between 7,000 and 8,000 kilograms, twice that of an elephant.
This Tyrannosaurus Rex owes its name to its discoverer, the amateur paleontologist Stan Sacrison, who found it on private property in Hell Creek, South Dakota (United States), in 1987. The hip bone was peeking out, but the rest of the skeleton was scattered and buried, and it took more than 30,000 hours to extract the bones one by one.
The T-Rex Stan soon became the most popular in the world , thanks to a trip to Japan, and his appearance in numerous exhibitions. It is also the most replicated. More than 30 replicas from molds have been sold , at a rate of $ 100,000 each.
Stan’s price, therefore, seems justified. It even seems cheap compared to the hundreds of millions that are paid for works of art. After all, here we have a treasure of Nature from 65 million years ago.
The great unknown that remains to be known is who the buyer is, as Christie’s has not revealed it. In the United States, anyone can buy a mythical dinosaur if they have the money, and they can also do it anonymously.
If it has fallen into the hands of a private collector, we may never see it again in a public exhibition …
