Why rich people shouldn't be buying up dinosaur fossils. Pt 2

I start today's blog after just finding out ANOTHER Tyrannosaurus skull will be lost to an auction on December 9th. Fuck! This is the second skull we know that'll be lost to science.

Here's the thing though, supporters of the commercialization of fossils often argue that if commercial dealers don't dig them up, the fossils will just rot away and be destroyed by the elements. Which is true to an extent. But as I stated before, some commercial fossil hunters do destroy fossils on purpose. They destroy what they can't bring back to make sure what they can bring back remains rare. Sure, not all of them do that, but some do. But if commercial dealers don't find it and it gets destroyed by the elements, what difference does it make? I honestly don't have the answer to that.

Here's the thing, I don't fault people for trying to make money, we're all trying to make money to survive, but it's how they go about making money that upsets people. I do think we can reach a middle ground. The problem is whether the private fossil hunter is willing to settle for it.

I brought up Black Hills Institute and its founder Peter Larson in the previous post. This is a private company that specializes in commercial fossils. The Black Hill Institute owns a T. rex specimen named Stan. Stan is a well-studied specimen because The Black Hills Institute's owners love paleontology first and foremost so all paleontologists can access the specimen whenever they want to review it for data and study. Hell, the Black Hills Institute is a privately owned museum in South Dakota, so anyone can visit their museum to see all the specimens they have on display. The company also makes money by selling the casts of Stan to museums all over the world while they keep the real deal at the Institute for display and study. Stan is currently the most common Tyrannosaurus skeleton on display. Stan is a money-maker for the company. Now, I don't know the company's financials, but at the very least, all the hard work spent digging up Stan isn't for nothing. Here is a consistent money-maker where the science isn't ignored for the sake of profits. It's a good compromise, but are other commercial collectors willing to settle for less? That's up to the individuals, and I'm not holding my breath...

And then 2020 happened and Stan goes up for auction!!!

The rumor is that Pete's brother wants out of the business and wants his share of the money, so Stan was auctioned off. It's believed he's been sold to some rich guy in the Middle East. So much for that idea of commercial dealers working with museums for the benefit of everyone. In fairness to Pete, if the rumors are true, he had no choice, but we're not here to discuss rumors. With Stan gone, all the data collected can't be used because they can't be verified. People make mistakes all the time. Now paleontologists can't check on Stan to compare the data since they can't access it. With Stan fetching a record $32 million, people are once again seeing dollar signs when they see dinosaurs.

All these auctions are getting out of hand and the super-rich is just inflating the prices and making it hard for people who love dinosaurs and paleontology for knowledge. The irony is that these people want to own a dinosaur for prestige, yet it's the science and knowledge that we can learn from them that makes them amazing. Without that, they're just a bunch of heavy rocks. There could very well be some new unknown dinosaur sitting in someone's collection, but guess what, no one including the owner knows that because nobody has access to this specimen. What good is that? Just buy the damn cast instead. They're lighter and less fragile than owning real bones. Well-made casts are just as good as owning real bones.

If people aren't greedy, they can find the fossil and share ownership of it with a museum. The museum will own the real bones, while the commercial dealer owns the rights to sell replicas to whatever museum or rich person that would like to have a copy of their own. Let's face it, this idea requires humans to not be greedy, so it might as well be fantasy. Sue, the largest and most complete T. rex ever found was auctioned for 9 million in the late 90s. That price was insane for a fossil back in the day. The new auction announced today is trying to sell just a T. rex skull for 15 to 20 million!!! Why would anyone spend that much money on a single skull?

Here's the thing though, sometimes owning fossils can be cool, but you have to understand what you're buying. Invertebrate fossils are so numerous that it's actually okay to own the real deal. There are thousands upon thousands of Trilobite specimens out there that some aren't even collected from what I've been told. No one should be paying an insane amount of money just to own a Trilobite fossil though.

Our only hope is that neither Shen nor this new T. rex skull gets sold at the auction, or is sold at significantly lower prices to crash the market a little.

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