A triceratops skeleton, a fixture in a Wyoming museum for decades, is set to go under the hammer, marking a rare occasion where a publicly exhibited dinosaur fossil enters the auction market at a time of unprecedented demand for prehistoric remains.
Named "Trey," the fossil will be available for bids between 17 and 31 March on Joopiter, the online auction platform established by Grammy-winning artist and producer Pharrell Williams. Its pre-auction valuation stands between $4.5 million to $5.5 million.
Dating back over 66 million years to the late Cretaceous period, Trey was unearthed near Lusk, Wyoming, in 1993 by Lee Campbell and the late Allen Graffham, a commercial palaeontologist renowned for his many significant discoveries.
This 17-foot-long (5.3-metre-long) herbivore welcomed visitors at the 1995 grand opening of the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis, where it remained on loan until 2023.
Following a recent private sale, the skeleton is currently in Singapore, where it is being offered for private viewings until the end of March, according to Joopiter.
Palaeontologist Andre LuJan, who assisted Joopiter in preparing the fossil for auction, noted Trey’s unique appeal: "Trey has this cultural aspect that a lot of fossils that go to auction these days just simply don’t have. This one is connected to people and undoubtedly has inspired young children who’ve seen it to pursue a career in palaeontology."
Once primarily the preserve of museums and academic institutions, dinosaur fossils are now increasingly sought after as investments.
In 2024, the remains of “Apex” the stegosaurus, went for $44.6 million at auction, shattering the previous record of $31.8 million paid in 2020 for “Stan,” a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton.
In a sign that the dinosaur fossil market remains strong, a rare young dinosaur skeleton blew past its $4 million to $6 million Sotheby’s pre-auction estimate in July and ended up fetching more than $30 million in a bidding frenzy, including fees and costs.
Caitlin Donovan, Joopiter’s global head of sales, suggested this surging interest indicates a move away from traditional art markets, such as old master paintings, towards items possessing "cultural resonance."
LuJan added: "(Dinosaurs) have always captivated our imagination ... and people are now starting to see the value in investing in these as assets."
However, this burgeoning market has raised concerns among some palaeontologists that crucial specimens could vanish into private collections, thereby denying scientists vital research opportunities. Kristi Curry Rogers, a palaeontologist at Minnesota’s Macalester College, stated that public museums are "getting totally priced out of an exploding market."
Curry Rogers, who is not involved in the current sale, warned: "If a fossil goes into a private collection without guaranteed access forever, that data is essentially lost to science."
LuJan stressed that Trey has always been privately owned, expressing his hope that it will ultimately find a home in a museum, much like Apex. The stegosaurus is now exhibited at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, following a long-term loan agreement signed by its buyer, which permits scientific study.
"Because we’ve had this paradigm shift in what owning dinosaurs means to society," LuJan explained, "people are naturally gravitating toward these benevolent situations where they loan them long-term to museums or they end up donating them to a new museum that’s just being born."
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