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JURASSIC MARK-UP


As 100-million-year-old dinosaur


fossils fetch ever-increasing sums at auction, collectors are vying to place the winning bid. But has anyone stopped to think if they should?


Words RUPERT NEATE


New York, she raised her gavel before issuing a final warning: ‘It’s the last chance – for all of you – for the juvenile Ceratosaurus nasicornis.’ Then... thwack. ‘Sold.’ Kao turned to Cassandra Hatton, vice-president and head of science and natural history at the auction house, who was alongside her on the podium, and asked: ‘Cassandra, do you need a cigarette?’ The end result of the drama was that an unknown telephone bidder


A


only identified by their paddle number – 439 – had acquired a 150-mil- lion-year-old dinosaur skeleton fossil. Including fees and costs, the final sale price was $30.5 million (£22.7 million). That July auction was ‘fun, but stressful’ for Hatton, 47. She had


sourced the dinosaur, arranged the sale and – she hoped – lined up the bidders. Hatton, who studied French and history at University of Califor- nia, Los Angeles (UCLA), started out selling rare books and manuscripts. But her childhood fascination with dinosaurs growing up in California led her to specialise in prehistoric objects and bringing them to market. She is the woman who has perhaps done more than anyone to power


a recent blockbuster boom in dinosaur fossil auctions, including a 10ſt- tall gorgosaurus that sold for $6 million in 2022; a T. rex skull nicknamed ‘Maximus’ that sold for $6.1 million in 2023; and last year’s record-break- ing $44.6 million sale of ‘Apex’, a 27ſt-long stegosaurus bought by billion- aire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin. Dinosaur fossils are the new must-have item for the global super-rich


and slightly less rich celebrities. Some trace the boom in these prehistor- ic relics to ‘Sue’, a Tyrannosaurus rex nicknamed aſter Sue Hendrickson,


t $26 million, this was ‘probably a once in a lifetime oppor- tunity’, said auctioneer Phyllis Kao. An intense, six-minute, six-way bidding war had sent the price of the lot shooting up to seven times its original estimate, but this looked like the moment. From her vantage point at the lectern at Sotheby’s


MATTHEW SHERMAN


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