A two-lot sale of three dinosaur skeletons that could date back 157 million years could raise $13 million at auction in London next week.
The Jurassic Icons sale at Christie’s features a stegosaurus skeleton and a pair of allosaurus skeletons, an adult and a juvenile, that are being sold together.
The stegosaurus has 144 fossil bones, and is completed with later additions.
It was found in Meilyn Quarry, in Carbon County, Wyoming, in the famous fossil grounds of Como Bluff. The infamous “Bone Wars” were fought there, as pioneers in fossil hunting and paleontology dug deep – and reportedly chucked rocks at each other – in pursuit of the best species from the Jurassic era.
The first ever stegosaurus skeleton was found there, and given its name that means roughly, “roof lizard”.
This example is 98 by 213 3⁄8 by 81 1⁄8 in at its extremities.
The Stegosaurus has distinctive plate-like structures along its back. Image courtesy Christie’s.
It was discovered in 2002, with further digs taking place until 2018. It was assembled, completed and mounted in Germany in 2023.
Stegosaurus is one of the most well-known of all dinosaurs, and a staple of many fictional imaginings of the prehistoric world, including Jurassic Park.
It is for sale with an estimate of £3 million to £5 million.
Up for grabs in the same sale is a pair of Allosaurus, one an adult and one a juvenile.
The adult has 143 fossil bones and is 71 5⁄8 x 220 ½ x 102 3⁄8 in. The younger dinosaur has 135 pieces, and is 60 ¼ x 136 ¼ x 33 1⁄8 in in size.
The adult skeleton was unearthed in 1994. The juvenile 2002.
Allosaurus was a contemporary of the Stegosaurus and a fearsome predator.
The pair of Allosaurus is unique.
Christie’s said: “These ferocious hunters have long been recognized in popular culture as the original killer dinosaur, pre-dating the Tyrannosaurus rex, both in age and date of discovery. The Allosaurus is one of the first dinosaurs to be depicted on the silver screen, the apex predator of the 1912 novel and the 1925 cinema adaptation of Conan Doyle’s The Lost World.”
This pair was discovered together.
They would have roamed the West of America snacking on dear- and cow-sized creatures as well as much bigger gentle giants like the Brontosaurus, and indeed the Stegosaurus.
All of these skeletons were bought with a quarry near the Bone Wars sites in 2008.
After excavation they have been restored so they are essentially complete creatures.
Dinosaur skeletons can be very valuable.
In July on this year, Apex, a huge Stegosaurus (11 feet tall and 27 feet long), was auctioned for £34 million in New York.
That was a record for any fossil beating a $31.8 million record set in 2020.
How these unnamed new finds fare next week will show how the market is performing.
