47 WHEN YOU


do. ‘There are people who really know. They know the different types of dinosaurs, and the difference between a juvenile and an adult. There are also people who are trophy hunting: they want the biggest and the best, whatever the category is. They want the best Giacometti sculpture, the best Picasso, whatever it is, and now the best dinosaur.’ Hatton says buyers generally want to own a dinosaur for what it ‘signals’ about them to the outside world. ‘There’s a difference between buying a dinosaur [and buying] a Picasso,’ she says. ‘There’s a certain group of people who would be really impressed by the Picasso. It’s a very different group of people who are impressed by a rare, not well very known dinosaur. When you buy a dinosaur, you’re buying more than just an object. You’re buying nobility, you’re buying class,


you’re buying intelligence, you’re buying curiosity.’ She says buyers want dinosaurs for their beauty, history and curiosity, but also for their pure physicality. ‘People want to be associated with them,’ she says. ‘Dino- saurs are big and they’re powerful and they’re interesting.’ Buyers enjoy showing off their purchases


when their friends visit, and Hatton has seen dozens – sometimes hundreds – of fos- sils at collectors’ homes. ‘It tends to be parts,’ she says, rather than whole skeletons like Apex. ‘Maybe it’s a femur, maybe it’s a skull or a tooth.’


C


Sotheby’s Cassandra Hatton admires the $30.5 million Ceratosaurus nasicornis


alvin Chu, a collector based in Singa- pore, has more than 1,000 dinosaur fossils on display in his city centre


apartment. ‘I became interested in fossils at age eight, when my mother gave me an


BUY A DINOSAUR, YOU’RE BUYING NOBILITY, YOU’RE BUYING CLASS, YOU’RE BUYING INTELLIGENCE, YOU’RE BUYING CURIOSITY


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