150 Million-Year-Old Rare Dinosaur Fossil Up For Sale At Paris Auction

A rare 150-million-year-old Camptosaurus skeleton, fondly called Barry, will be up for auction.

Barry is a member of the Iguanodontidae family, one of the oldest families of dinosaurs known.

(Photo : Getty Images/Sam Yeh)

According to the Paris auction house Hôtel Drouot, the recently restored fossilized species will be auctioned on Oct. 20 for €800,000 to €1.2 million (US$855,132 to US$1.28 million).

"Of extraordinary quality and exceptional provenance, Barry, enhanced with this new preparation, is one of the most complete dinosaurs ever auctioned," said Alexandre Giquello, the president of the auction house.

Barry the dinosaur

The dinosaur, which lived 150 million years ago in the late Jurassic period, was unearthed in Wyoming in the 1990s.

It was first repaired in 2000 by palaeontologist Barry James, who gave it its name.

It was an uncommon find, considering ornithopod dinosaurs account for approximately 14% of the specimens discovered, and the majority of the remains discovered are disarticulated.

This is Barry's first public debut after being in the private possession of a Colorado collector.

Zoic, an Italian laboratory that bought Barry last year, has completed additional repair work on the skeleton, which stands 2.1 meters (6.9 feet) tall and is 5 meters (16.4 feet) long.

Approximately 80% of the bones are original, with 90% of the skull still intact.

Market of dinosaur fossils

Sales of dinosaur fossils are uncommon, with only a few taking place each year worldwide.

Paleontology expert Iacopo Briano believes that the market for dinosaur fossils grow into a thriving one.

"In the early years, when this specialty was starting to establish itself on the market, the sale of a dinosaur might have seemed an oddity, almost something foreign to classic collecting," he said.

"But today the market is experiencing a phase of maturity and expansion, and specimens with a long pedigree are once again becoming accessible to a new generation of buyers."

Natural history objects, such as fossilized eggs, enormous teeth, meteorites, minerals, and even strands of mammoth hair, are being marketed to collectors and investors by auction houses, dealers, and specialized stores.

But some scientists have expressed concern about specimens ending up in private hands.

Prof Steve Brusatte, a dinosaur researcher at Edinburgh University, said that he was concerned the skeletons, which were "scientifically very valuable," might "disappear into the vaults of private collectors."

Dr. Dennis Hansen of the Zurich Zoological Museum believes that many privately owned dinosaur specimens will eventually become available to the public.

Hansen said that he see it the same way as art. He noted that art historians would like every single important painting to be available in the public ream, but experience shows that sooner or later it ends up in the public domain.

In April, a 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton was sold to a private individual for 5.55 million Swiss francs ($6.2 million; £5 million).

This is the first time a T. Rex has been auctioned in Europe.

The specimen has been described as ''one of the most spectacular T. rex skeletons in existence,'' measuring 11.6m long and 3.9m tall.

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