Words: Tom Ward
The next smart investment may not be cryptocurrencies or supporting tech billionaires on their space adventures — but something far closer to home; far deeper in the earth. Instead of looking to the future and new technologies, a rich vein of wealth may be uncovered by turning to the past. Specifically, the Cretaceous period. It was a time when T Rex, that tyrannical lizard king, ruled the western part of North America. Some 85 million to 65 million years later, it is these same creatures that are making fossil hunters rich. Take ‘Stan’, a T Rex fossil that sold for $31.8 million at auction last October.
This boom in fossils is great news for the budding dino-hunter, but apparently not so great news for palaeontologists whom, National Geographic explained, are “furious” about the development (“The fossil was priceless to paleontologists, but experts fear it may be lost to research now that it belongs to an unknown bidder,” wrote Michael Greshko, reporting on Stan’s sale.)
‘Stan’ was unearthed over 30 years ago in South Dakota by an amateur palaeontologist named Stan Sacrison. Excavated in 1992 (and named after its discoverer) the fossil was housed at the private Black Hills Institute of Geological Research. That is, until Sacrison decided to sell his namesake, contacting London’s Christie’s to shift the bones in what would make history as the most expensive fossil auction of all time, beating a 1997 auction in which a complete T. Rex was sold for a paltry $8.36 million (or $13.5 million in today’s money).
Many actual palaeontologists are wary of the amateurs, especially their methods and lack of scientific intent. They argue that fossils should be part of a public trust, not a jackpot for private citizens.
‘Sue’, the world’s most expensive ever fossil
Speaking to National Geographic, palaeontologist Lindsay Zanno of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, called Stan’s $31.8 million price tag “simply staggering”, while David Evans of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto told Nat Geo “That’s an astronomical price that borders on absurdity…If this kind of money [were] invested properly, it could easily fund 15 permanent dinosaur research positions, or about 80 full field expeditions per year, in perpetuity.”
Yet Stan is unlikely to be the last of his kind. Across the US, ranchers are turning fossil hunters as a way of supplementing their income. And prices are only rising. According to fossil broker Jared Huston (speaking to Bloomberg) a decade ago a good T. Rex tooth might have sold for $1,000 per inch (they typically come in around four inches). Today, a good T. Rex chomper might net you $4,000 per inch – that’s $16,000 total.
With the market hotting up, it seems this clash over titans is only just getting started.
The most famous period of dinosaur-related dispute occurred during the ‘Bone Wars’ of the late 19th Century in which ‘The Great Dinosaur Rush’ led to a heated rivalry between Edward Drinker Cope (of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia) and Othniel Charles Marsh (of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale). As each raced to bag the best bones, they frequently resorted to theft, bribery, slander, and destruction of the other’s fossils.
It was a fight as dirty as it was drawn out, but scientists mostly agree that because Marsh had more men and money at his disposal, he ‘won’ the war by collecting the greatest number of fossils. Cope, however, did manage to discover a total of 56 new species.
"This clash over titans is only just getting started..."
Dino-hunting has continued in the centuries since, but it wasn’t until the 1997 Sotheby’s sale of ‘Sue’ — a virtually complete T. Rex skeleton named after its discoverer, Sue Hendrickson — for a cool $8.36 million that this became big business. At the time, the sale was nearly $7.5 million more than anyone had ever paid for a dinosaur fossil, signalling that the appetite for good quality specimens was there, and that museums and collectors had the cash to back their bids.
“Scientists used to be able to go out and look for fossils on landowners’ private property basically for free. You’d go out, you’d form a relationship, and that’s the way it worked,” the Denver Museum’s Lyson told Bloomberg. “That really changed when Sue was sold. That’s when the landowners started wanting pieces.”
In a few countries, including Canada and Mongolia, dinosaur fossils are property of the state. What makes the U.S. such rich ground is that not only was it home to the T. Rex (which only lived in North America), the law there is on the side of the landowner. As long as you have the landowner’s permission, find a bone and it’s yours. Fossils are often sold online or at trade shows, but the best fossils are sold at auction houses, which do require proof of legal ownership with some houses even X-raying bones to ensure legitimacy.
Federal lands, however, require scientists to obtain permits to dig, and ensure any findings will end up in an appropriate research facility (cue Indiana Jones voice: “This belongs in a museum!”). Native American lands require the permission of the tribe to dig there, too.
The ‘Dueling Dinosaurs’ — a remarkable fossil sold for some $6 million
Speaking with Bloomberg, rancher Clayton Phipps explains that hunting dinosaur bones on his property is a vital way of supplementing his income, allowing him to make a living in a harsh economic and environmental climate.
Phipps became famous in dino circles when he uncovered the ‘Dueling Dinosaurs’ – a piece containing the complete fossils of a 22-foot-long T. rex and a 28-foot-long triceratops believed to be locked in vigorous combat at the time of their death. Phipps unearthed it on his land in 2006 and sold it to a nonprofit affiliated with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh for $6 million. As the sales of Sue and Stan show, a similar find today would be an unimaginable windfall for any dino-hunter.
Before you invest your cash in a fedora, bullwhip and archaeologist’s excavation kit, however, it is worth examining the moral quandaries around the sport. Buying fossils has reportedly become en mode, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicholas Cage apparently once locked in a battle for a $276,000 dinosaur skull.
“What’s wrong with buying a dinosaur?” the BBC asked in 2019, covering another high profile dino-sale and noting that “fossils are in fashion.”
Meanwhile, in 1992 the FBI seized ‘Sue’ as part of a debate on who the remains actually belonged to.
Some, like Phipps, would argue that these debates are missing the point. Once a fossil begins to appear out of the ground, it can quickly be destroyed by the weather or animals. By collecting fossils, Phipps and his associates are arguably protecting records of history that would otherwise be lost.
As for his personal belief, as he explained to Bloomberg, Phipps would prefer to sell to museums — but the money offered by private collectors is often too important to his ranch to turn down. He believes, however, that the two approaches needn’t be mutually exclusive. “More fossils are being destroyed by Mother Nature than are collected,” he says. “There’s no reason we can’t all work together.”
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