Christie’s Yanks T. Rex Off the Auction Block

Christie’s was about to auction off a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton in Hong Kong this month, looking to fetch between $15 million and $25 million, but canceled the sale when doubts were raised about how much of the fossilized bones were really old and how the critter was described in marketing materials.

The skeleton called “Shen” was to be the first of its kind auctioned in Asia, but a fossil company in South Dakota noticed it had striking similarities to one of its discoveries, another T. rex they call “Stan.” Stan fetched a whopping $31.8 million at auction in 2020, but the company, the Black Hills Institute of Geologic Research, has retained intellectual property rights on the specimen, which allows it to sell polyurethane casts of Stan for $120,000 a pop.

The institute’s president, Peter Larson, told the New York Times that he noticed Shen’s skull was very similar to Stan’s when he first saw a photo of the new guy, right down to the little holes in the lower left jawbone that are unique to Stan. Larson said that it looked like the anonymous owner of Shen had bought a cast of Stan to fill in the missing bones on Shen. “They’re using Stan to sell a dinosaur that’s not Stan,” Larson said. “It’s very misleading.”

In its marketing materials, Christie’s said Shen was “54 percent represented by bone density,” which is a dubious measure given that the specimen has about 79 original bones of a dinosaur that had between 300 and 380 when whole.

So the auction house pulled Shen off the block ten days before the scheduled sale, saying in a statement that this specimen could “benefit from further study.” 

Perhaps Christie’s could extend that sentiment to all of its bone-based auctions? These ancient specimens belong in museums or research institutions, not in some anonymous billionaire’s trophy room. 

Photo credit: Christie's