Dinosaur skeleton broke auction records with $44.6mn sale in New York

The largest dinosaur skeleton, Apex ever discovered broke auction records with $44.6 million in sales in New York. Apex bidding and selling happened at Sotheby’s auction on July 17, 2024.

According to the auction site, Apex is among the most complete skeletons ever found. Paleontologists estimate Apex is 150 million years old. It is 11 feet (3.3 meters) tall and 27 feet long with 254 fossil bone fragments out of a total of around 319.

*Apex has the unique characteristic of extremely old-fossil around 150 million years ago*

The previous auction record for a dinosaur skeleton was $31.8 million which happened in 2020 for another dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus Rex called “Stan.”

However, Sotheby’s auction site expected Apex to sell for between $4 million and $6 million, but the price quickly rose as telephone bidders boosted its sales. The auction room soon changed into exciting shocks and cheering as bidding continued.

Following the intense ongoing bidding, an anonymous American buyer bid $44.6 million for Apex, which broke all previous auction records for dinosaur skeleton fossils.

The winning contender outbid the other six contenders to buy Apex. He intended plans to loan Apex to a US institution. Cassandra Hatton, head of Sotheby’s auction site, emphasized the significance of Apex during the bidding session.

Cassandra stated Apex made its name in history; 150 million years ago as it wandered around the planet. A paleontologist Jason Copper found the Apex in May 2022 on his private land near Dinosaur Town, Colorado.

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Since then, Sotheby’s auction team coordinated with Jason to record the entire process of discovery, excavation, restoration, preparation, and mounting.

However, academic paleontologists (fossils specialists) severely criticized such sellings of fossils. According to them, fossilized specimens should be placed in museums or research centers instead of auction sites.

This is because they don’t have enough financial means to cope with high auction prices for these specimens.