Triceratops skeleton ‘Trey’ to hit the auction block as dinosaur market soars
The 66-million-year-old fossil, for sale on musician Pharrell Williams’ auction platform Joopiter, is expected to fetch up to US$5.5 million
A triceratops skeleton that stood in a Wyoming museum for decades will be auctioned off, a rare instance of a museum-exhibited dinosaur going to the auction block just as the market for the prehistoric giants has hit record highs.
The fossil, dubbed “Trey”, will be open for bidding from March 17 to 31 on Joopiter, an online auction platform founded by Grammy-winning artist and producer Pharrell Williams. It has a pre-auction estimate of US$4.5 million to US$5.5 million.
Dating back more than 66 million years to the late Cretaceous period, Trey was discovered near Lusk, Wyoming, in 1993 by Lee Campbell and the late Allen Graffham, a commercial palaeontologist who made numerous significant finds over his lifetime.
The 17-foot-long (5.3-metre-long) herbivore greeted visitors at the 1995 grand opening of the Wyoming Dinosaur Centre in Thermopolis, and remained there on loan until 2023.
Having been recently sold in a private transaction, it is now in Singapore, where it is available for private viewings through the end of March, Joopiter said.
Trey “has this cultural aspect that a lot of fossils that go to auction these days just simply don’t have,” said palaeontologist Andre LuJan, who worked with Joopiter to prepare the fossil for auction.
“This one is connected to people and undoubtedly has inspired young children who’ve seen it to pursue a career in palaeontology.”