It was not until 1997, with the sale of Sue, that dinosaurs started to be viewed as potential centrepieces of auctions.The trouble started in 1992, when Mr Larson stepped out of the shower to find his fossil business in Hill City, South Dakota, blocked off with yellow tape and swarmed by FBI agents. They had a search warrant demanding that the institute surrender Sue, known as the largest T. rex specimen ever found at the time.
Fossil hunting has become a multimillion-dollar business, fetching millions at auction. PHOTO: NYTIMES In 2000, Sue was unveiled at the Field Museum, and its 272kg skull became the face of the growing public fascination with dinosaurs.If Mr Larson had his way, Stan, the company’s next big find after Sue, would have stayed on display forever at the company’s museum in Hill City, a former gold mining settlement near Mount Rushmore that bustles each summer with tourists and bikers drawn to the area for the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.
The 12m long fossil went on display behind floor-to-ceiling windows at Christie’s in Manhattan in 2020. Stan sold that year for US$31.8 million – a record for a fossil. National Geographic reported in 2022 that the specimen would be featured in a developing natural history museum in the United Arab Emirates.Many scientists are aghast at the growing commercial market, and increasingly anxious that scientifically important specimens will disappear into private mansions.
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