Re: T. rex auction results

["Cliff Green" <dinonaut@emerytelcom.net>]

Dear Guy and List,

     In the immortal words of Nelson the bully from The Simpsons: HA- HAAA!

Cliff

> LOS ANGELES, May 16 - The fossilized remains of a 68-million-year-old
Tyrannosaurus rex were snapped up at an auction here Sunday for a mere
$93,250, far below what most experts had predicted.
>
> The Tyrannosaurus is one of just 30 ever found and only the second to be
offered for public sale.
>
> The winning bid of $80,000, to which auction house commission and state
taxes were added, was placed anonymously by telephone by an agent for a
consortium of South Dakota investors.
>
> The bones, nicknamed Barnum and discovered in 1995 in northeastern
Wyoming, are believed to be part of the first T. rex ever found, now housed
at the Natural History Museum in London.
>
> Barnum's bones, about 20 percent of the dinosaur, had been assigned an
estimate of $400,000 to $900,000 in the catalog for the auction house,
Bonhams & Butterfields on Sunset Boulevard.
>
> "I'm extremely disappointed and surprised," said Japheth Boyce, a
paleontologist who unearthed the remains. "I work with fossils and minerals
on a daily basis, and I like people to show appreciation for them. I guess I
equated appreciation with dollars."
>
> Mr. Boyce, reached at his home in Rapid City, S.D., after the sale, said
he did not know who had bought Barnum, but he had encouraged potential
buyers in both the United States and Britain to bid.
>
> "My guess is that no one is going to admit to anything for the moment,"
said Mr. Boyce, who would have shared in proceeds had the sale brought in
more than $500,000.
>
> It could not be determined whether the London museum, which has 14 percent
of what may be the same dinosaur, had bid so it could reunite the parts.
>
> In 1997, a dinosaur named Sue, found near Faith, S.D., with 85 percent of
its bones largely intact, including a 600-pound skull, was sold at auction
to the Field Museum in Chicago for $8.36 million.
>
> Sunday's sale included a massive, 40-foot-long replica of another T. rex,
Stan, whose remains were discovered in 1987 by an amateur paleontologist,
Stan Sacrison, in a sandy cliff face near Buffalo, S.D.
>
> The replica was sold for $70,250 to a Georgia museum.
>
>