Apex, The Largest Stegosaurus Fossil Ever Found, Heads to Auction

[DinoToyForum]

well at least if it's out of the ground there is the chance it could be purchased by a museum, or a generous millionaire could allow its study, some day, donate it temporarily and so on.  In the ground we know zip about it, not even that it exists.  We already know things about Apex, Dueling Dinosaurs, Stan, Big John etc.  Would you rather none of them existed?

I can't think of one example where we know nothing about a fortune hunter's fossil find that went to a private buyer.  Irritator is probably the closest?   

I think a useful law would be if fortune hunter's had to allow their finds to be studied for a period of 365 days, prior to being able to auction it.   That way they can still make their money, so there is incentive to keep looking, but the scientific community would have a decent look at it.  There would be a lot of details to work out with a law like this but in broad strokes, i think it would work.

Anything anyone says they 'know' about a privately owned specimen should be regarded with caution. I've seen dozens of dodgy specimens in my time as a palaeontologist, and I've had the opportunity to inspect many specimens first hand, including mounted dinosaurs sold for millions of dollars, and I can tell you with all sincerity: do not take these specimens at face value. You cannot trust the specimens or the people that build them. Sometimes they are reliable, sometimes they are not. Sometimes they are professionally conserved and mounted with detailed records, sometimes they are veritable bodge-jobs with few records and lots of fakery involved. They are almost always less complete than marketed. Because the sellers (no matter what they say) are often more interested in money than science, they have few scruples with undermining the scientific value of the specimen if it makes it more sellable or aesthetically pleasing. I've seen shocking examples.

Apart from this fundamental issue with the specimens themselves, the problem with making specimens temporarily available to researchers is reproducibility in science. This is why academic journals only accept research articles on specimens held in accredited repositories (barring the occasional rare, controversial exception), which hold specimens in perpetuity for society.

It may not sound like it but I'm actually progressive on this matter. I'm more open minded than many of my peers and I've published on a best case scenario for a privately owned dinosaur specimen, where the owner worked in collaboration with and provided replicas for an accredited museum: https://plesiosauria.com/pdf/larkin_etal_2022_titus.pdf But 3D models or replicas are no substitute for the real bones, they can be problematic in other ways, so it's a compromise solution.

We can hope for a similar best case scenario with this Stegosaurus, but a worse case scenario really could be worse than it being left in the ground - a net negative for palaeontology that fuels more of the same losses in the future.

How is your view on this Siber & Siber company in Switzerland? On one hand, they have been commercially digging for dinosaur bones and selling many specimens (also to respectable museums), on the other hand they run their own museum (which admittedly feels a bit packed and chaotic) and have donated several skeletons to the Natural History Museum of the University of Zürich. This example came just to my mind, because we happened to visit Zürich and both museums in April.

I'm not familiar with this company so I can't say, but I'll check it out.

[thomasw100]

How is your view on this Siber & Siber company in Switzerland? On one hand, they have been commercially digging for dinosaur bones and selling many specimens (also to respectable museums), on the other hand they run their own museum (which admittedly feels a bit packed and chaotic) and have donated several skeletons to the Natural History Museum of the University of Zürich. This example came just to my mind, because we happened to visit Zürich and both museums in April.

I'm not familiar with this company so I can't say, but I'll check it out.

Here is a link to this private museum: https://sauriermuseum.ch/

[DinoToyForum]

How is your view on this Siber & Siber company in Switzerland? On one hand, they have been commercially digging for dinosaur bones and selling many specimens (also to respectable museums), on the other hand they run their own museum (which admittedly feels a bit packed and chaotic) and have donated several skeletons to the Natural History Museum of the University of Zürich. This example came just to my mind, because we happened to visit Zürich and both museums in April.

I'm not familiar with this company so I can't say, but I'll check it out.

Here is a link to this private museum: https://sauriermuseum.ch/

That place has the right idea, another best-case scenario, it's as good as it can get when it comes to a 'private' collection by the look of it. Their museum is the sort of place that could potentially become accredited if they so wished. A bit like the Etches Collection did. Maybe they already are – a quick search on Google Scholar shows some material in their museum has been the subject of peer-reviewed papers. There's a big difference between a privately owned public museum like this, with owners who clearly really care about the science and outreach, and unscrupulous dealers who don't. But one still has to wonder about the authenticity and origin of the specimens.

[ceratopsian]

The Sauriermuseum holds some holotypes such as Galeamopus.  The publication of Galeamopus explicitly states that the museum is open to researchers and names quite a few instances.  We were at the museum just over a week ago and certainly the displays were keen to highlight their academic collaborators.

[EmperorDinobot]

I oppose the sale of fossils to private entities. Apex belongs in a museum!

[Newt]

Where's the line, though? Should rock shops be banned from selling tiny, inexpensive Phacops and Knightia specimens, or polished belemnite and ammonite shells? I bet those sorts of fossils are an important part of the origin story of many paleontologists.

There's an analogous situation with art. Many works by great masters are in private hands and inaccessible to the public or to researchers. Some think these works should all be in museums. But not every original artwork is of equal value. Should I be barred from selling my paintings to a collector? I can assure you, no museum wants them.

I don't know what the solution is. Many wealthy people with an interest in paleontology use their money to buy fossils for museums or fund research or provide scholarships - a much more public-spirited use of their funds than hiding away a unique specimen in the bonus room. It would be nice if the former group could pressure the latter group into donating their fossils to museums.

[Prehistory Resurrection]

[stargatedalek]

Even private ownership and housing is fine by me if they allow access to researchers. At least access for long enough to get scans and reconstructions/casts.

[dyno77]

I agree with that even private collections should be accessible to experts to collect the data and even scan the bones...this is why making casts of every major find is essential...in case the original falls to pieces or gets damaged or something like that...
Its well known that private collections contain some of the most unique finds..such as the largest tarbosaurus skull and the largest trex skull allegedly..
idk about it being the largest stegosaurus ever known from fossils,because a long time ago a report mentioned a 4ft stegosaur plate ,but they couldn't confirm it was defiantly from stegosaurus itself..the report is still online apparently..

[DinoToyForum]

Sold for $45 million.   

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stegosaurus-apex-sale-auction-record-45-million-sothebys-buyer/

[suspsy]

Sold for $45 million.   

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stegosaurus-apex-sale-auction-record-45-million-sothebys-buyer/

Colour me revolted.

[andrewsaurus rex]

Surprising that it is the most expensive fossil ever sold.

[CityRaptor]

Apex is "living up" to that name in more ways than one it seems.

[postsaurischian]

 The news say that the owner would place Apex at a public museum's disposal.

[thomasw100]

The news say that the owner would place Apex at a public museum's disposal.

This would be wonderful. Do we know in which country the owner resides?

[Bread]

The news say that the owner would place Apex at a public museum's disposal.

If this is true, good on that new owner.

I'm tired of seeing specimens, especially larger and more complete pieces, be locked away in the private ownership of a wealthy person.

[DinoToyForum]

Would you thank a bully if he helped you up off the floor after beating you up? No amount of sugar-coating can undo the irreparable damage this super-inflation is doing to palaeontology and our natural heritage. Even the 'good' billionaires are causing the problem they're offering to solve. Their apparent acts of philanthropy, if not just lip-service, will surely have strings attached.

Someone who truly wants to see these fossils in a public museum shouldn't buy them as a matter of principle. Maybe the exception is if the private buyer is buying them specifically to donate to a museum - no strings attached. But even such good intentions serve to price public museums out of the market in the first place... and in the long run.

Of course it's better if this fossil, or replicas of it, end up - even temporarily - in a museum. But I feel this is a terrible situation whichever way you cut it and we are desperately looking for vague silver linings.

[thomasw100]

Would you thank a bully if he helped you up off the floor after beating you up? No amount of sugar-coating can undo the irreparable damage this super-inflation is doing to palaeontology and our natural heritage. Even the 'good' billionaires are causing the problem they're offering to solve. Their apparent acts of philanthropy, if not just lip-service, will surely have strings attached.

Someone who truly wants to see these fossils in a public museum shouldn't buy them as a matter of principle. Maybe the exception is if the private buyer is buying them specifically to donate to a museum - no strings attached. But even such good intentions serve to price public museums out of the market in the first place... and in the long run.

Of course it's better if this fossil, or replicas of it, end up - even temporarily - in a museum. But I feel this is a terrible situation whichever way you cut it and we are desperately looking for vague silver linings.

The only solution to this are drastic changes to the laws that regulate ownership of natural heritage. Any fossil that is of significant scientific value should by definition be owned by the country where it is found.

[Faelrin]

@DinoToyForum So in short this all falls back to the "paleontologist" who found it and decided to put it for auction in the first place, instead of getting a museum and/or other paleontologists involved. And now this has sold for more then any fossil before, setting another standard for the ultra rich 1%.

That said, the buyer is Kenneth Griffin, who wants it to become available for the public, not kept as a private trophy. He stated it will be kept in the US since it was born and lived its life here (in comparison to what happened to Stan, being bought by Abu Dhabi for a museum there).

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ken-griffin-apex-stegosaurus-buyer-auction/

He donated to the Field Museum $16.5 million in 2017 for them to update and move the Sue T. rex exhibit, and other times from the looks of it.

https://www.fieldmuseum.org/about/press/biggest-dinosaur-ever-discovered-coming-field-museum-2018-thanks-gift-kenneth-c-griffin

I wonder if he bid so high to outbid others so that it could be kept out of other billionares private collections? But again the downside is this just adds to the pile of fossils going for way too much money that museum's can't compete.

Granted it doesn't help that the USA doesn't have any laws preventing auctioning of major specimens like this that some other countries do. Though that's far from the only downside to living here I suppose.

[Carnoking]

Whereas I don't like the new precedent this sets, all I'll say is that this could have had a much less happy outcome for Apex and the knowledge it holds (assuming Griffin stays true to his word of course).