Ajit Karn
Geneva, Switzerland: A 67-million-year-old T-Rex skeleton will be auctioned in Switzerland next month, marking the first such sale in Europe, the auction house announced on Saturday.
The Trinity skeleton will be auctioned off in Zurich on April 18, according to the Koller auction house.
According to the auction catalogue, the 3.9-meter-tall (12.8-foot-tall) sculpture Trinity has been appraised at between six and eight million Swiss francs ($6.5 to $8.7 million).
Christian Link, who is in charge of natural history memorabilia at Koller, told AFP that this estimate was “extremely low.”
Trinity is “one of the most magnificent T-Rex skeletons in existence,” according to the auction house. It is a well-preserved and splendidly restored fossil.
It would be the first time in Europe and only the third time in the world that a complete T-Rex dinosaur skeleton of exceptional quality would be offered at auction.
Koller cited a 2021 study published in the scientific journal Nature that revealed only 32 mature T-Rex skeletons had been discovered worldwide. The T-Rex was one of the largest terrestrial predators to ever roam the planet.
Extremely well preserved
The Trinity skeleton is composed of bone fragments from three different T. rex specimens.
According to the catalogue, they were extracted between 2008 and 2013 from the Hell Creek and Lance Creek formations in Montana and Wyoming, United States.
The two locations are known for the discovery of two other significant T-Rex skeletons that have been auctioned: Sue, which sold for $8.4 million in 1997, and Stan, which set a world auction record of $31.8 million in 2020.
Last year, Christie’s withdrew a Montana-excavated T-Rex skeleton days before it was to be auctioned in Hong Kong, after doubts were reportedly raised about certain skeletal elements.
Link stated that Koller intended to be frank and transparent regarding the provenance of the Trinity bones.
He stated that slightly more than half of the skeleton’s bone material originates from the three Tyrannosaurus specimens.
According to Koller, Trinity’s cranium is “extremely well-preserved” and originates from a single T. rex specimen.
Link stated that the skeleton was provided by a “private individual” and flown to Switzerland in nine large containers for reassembly.
In recent years, auctions of dinosaur skeletons and other fossils have generated tens of millions of dollars, but experts have cautioned that the trade may be detrimental to science by placing specimens in private hands and out of reach of researchers.
Koller noted that “almost all of the uncommon adult T. rex skeletons that have been unearthed are now in institutional collections.”
“The Zurich auction is therefore a rare occasion to acquire such a high-quality fossil,” the company said in a statement.
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Link also expressed his desire for Trinity to be acquired by a museum, adding that several had already expressed interest.
According to the catalogue, the skeleton will be the centrepiece of an auction that will also feature rare fossils and a 2,145-kilogram boulder that is “among the largest Martian meteorites ever discovered on earth.”
