It seems that someone has just fulfilled their childhood dream and bought a real dinosaur, or rather its almost complete skeleton, and paid over 30 million dollars for it!
The Tyrannosaurus skeleton named Stan was the highlight of the Evening Sale of 20th Century Art, which took place on October 6 at Christie's famous English auction house. The $ 30 million price tag is dizzying, and is certainly the highest price has ever been paid for a dinosaur fossil, though the specimen is truly unique. Stan is 12 meters long, 4 meters high and consists of 188 bones - it is also one of the best preserved and most complete T-rex skeletons we have found.
And to add authenticity to the whole, you can find some traces of the battles that the dinosaur fought in its life on the skeleton - a fused neck fracture, marks on the ribs, jaw and skull that look like the works of other tyrannosaurs. No wonder that the auction attracted interest, but hardly anyone expected that the starting price of USD 3 million would suddenly turn into over USD 30 million. Auction house specialists were expecting between $ 6 million and $ 8 million, mainly because the record holder so far, another T-rex named Sue, was sold in 1997 for $ 8.4 million.
Interestingly, it is still unknown who auctioned the skeleton, because the auction house protects the data of its buyers and whether it will still be available for viewing when it reaches its new home. Until now, it has been best tech advices at the Black Hills Institute, where virtually anyone could see it, so hopefully the new buyer is also a museum or similar facility that will show Stan to visitors instead of keeping Stan for himself. However, it is possible that the dinosaur will live on a private property, so a trip to Christie's Rockefeller Center in New York, where it is on display until October 21, may be your last chance to see it with your own eyes.