Tyrannosaurus skeleton sold at art auction for $ 31.8 million

Luiza Poreda, 9 October 2020

The 12-meter-long dinosaur fossil named Stan was the highlight of the art auction at Christie’s. The unusual skeleton of an animal from the late Cretaceous era broke sales records at an art auction on Tuesday, where works by Pollock, Picasso and Monet could also be auctioned.

The skeleton of a T. rex, nicknamed Stan, was the last item in this art auction. Its sale increased the estimated value of the entire auction fourfold. The auction of this object, which started at a bid of $ 3 million, was extremely long, as much as 20 minutes. The fight over the phone for the object was fought between buyers from London and New York. The winner of the auction remained anonymous.

According to James Hyslop, head of Christie’s science and natural history department, it is rare for palaeontologists to find tyrannosaur fossils as complete as Stan, and even more rarely do such skeletons appear on the market. The last time a comparable specimen hit an art auction in 1997, when a Tyrannosaurus named Sue sold for $ 8.36 million – nearly $ 13.5 million today, in terms of the inflation rate. “I will never forget the first time I came face to face with him” said Hyslop. “He looked even bigger and more dangerous than I imagined.”

According to the Christie’s website, Stan is one of the best-preserved dinosaur skeletons discovered and was found in 1987. He was named in honor of his discoverer Stan Sacrison. It is one of the most complete fossil skeletons of the most famous dinosaur species that have ever lived.